Starmer should be looking to Clement Atlee for inspiration, not Tony Blair
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
With the Government on the rack amidst the austerity-fuelled school building crisis, yesterday’s shadow cabinet reshuffle gave Keir Starmer one final chance to live up to his leadership pledges: to unite the Labour Party and offer the country a transformative programme, one which is more urgent and popular than ever in the Tories’ broken Britain. Sadly, what we got, as commentators have concluded, was yet another shift to the Right.
Nowhere was this clearer than in moves against the soft left, particularly Lisa Nandy, who was demoted for the second time, now to shadow an international development ministry which doesn’t even exist. Preet Gill, in turn, left the shadow cabinet, while Nick Thomas-Symonds faced another demotion, to Shadow Minister without Portfolio. Rosena Allin-Khan left the Shadow Cabinet after Starmer told her he did “not see a space for a mental health portfolio in a Labour Cabinet”, despite having herself sat in the shadow cabinet in such a role
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Meanwhile, the scrapping of the dedicated Shadow Development brief means that Starmer’s pledge to re-establish the department abolished by Boris Johnson will be added to his long list of broken promises. Nor will there be a dedicated employment rights role, the first time in nearly half a decade that Labour’s Shadow Cabinet has not contained such a role; big business has a dedicated secretary of state, but workers don’t. The loss of these roles signals danger for progressive politics.
Of course, it goes without saying that there were no promotions for members of the Socialist Campaign Group, who are uniformly excluded from the Shadow Cabinet. How far we are from the days when Starmer promised to build on Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity agenda and ‘end factionalism’.
Starmer cannot allow voters to see what might have been or how he is outshone by his predecessor
Keir Starmer’s cowardly purge of the Labour left has extended even to the party’s YouTube page – every Jeremy Corbyn-era video but one (Corbyn’s 2019 conference speech) has been deleted from the channel in an attempt to airbrush Corbyn out of history, leaving a staggering nine-year gap in the video record:
Nine years of party videos… gone
Starmer is right to be afraid: Corbyn’s sincerity, authenticity and actual vision for the UK backed by actual policies shed a merciless light on the craven, empty and deceitful moral vacuum that is Keir Starmer.
The move is reminiscent of the infamous image in which Soviet leader Josef Stalin had a lackey who had fallen out of favour airbrushed out of a photograph as if he had never existed:
The UK has been robbed of the prospect of real change for the better, for the many – and has had an Establishment ventriloquist’s dummy foisted on it instead, to create the clearly inauthentic illusion of choice in this broken democracy.
And the spinelessness and dishonesty of Starmer and his ghoulish hangers-on know no bounds.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn calls on Labour to commit to nationalising the transport industry in exclusive interview
Jeremy Corbyn slammed plans to close railway ticket offices as ‘cruel and simply wrong’ whilst calling on Labour to commit to renationalising the transport system, in an interview with LFF.
“What we need is a real, public and clear determination by the Labour Party, not just to bring the train operating companies back into public ownership, but all the other aspects of the rail industry into public ownership,” said Corbyn.
“We need a publicly owned and publicly run transport system.”
Plans to close 1,000 ticket offices in Britain have led to fresh calls to renationalise the rail system, as a whistle-blower admitted the plan was in fact about cost cutting, as supposed to ‘digitalising’ the future of travel which the government claimed. Over 2,300 jobs are being put at risk by the plan.
Labour leader’s 28 junkets include Spurs hospitality, two Coldplay concerts and a £380 dinner from Google at Davos
Image of Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox
Keir Starmer has accepted more free tickets to events such as sports matches, concerts and parties than the combined total of every other Labour leader since records began in 1997, openDemocracy analysis has found.
While the Labour leader spent his first year and a half in the role under lockdown, he has quickly made up for it, accepting gifts from donors including multi-millionaires, gambling giants, the online shopping app GETIR and the construction giant Mulalley & Co on 28 separate occasions. The gifts include days at the races, hospitality at Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur matches, an Adele gig, and two separate Coldplay concerts. In total, they are worth nearly £30,000.
In his five years as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn only accepted one such freebie: tickets to Glastonbury, where he spoke on the pyramid stage in 2017. Former Corbyn adviser Andrew Fisher told openDemocracy the Islington North MP had made a point of turning down corporate hospitality.
“Politicians at any level shouldn’t be beholden to corporate interests,” he said. “They’re elected to represent the people, and are well paid for it.”
His predecessor, Ed Miliband, only accepted tickets to the London Olympics and Paralympics opening and closing ceremonies, and a number of the contests during the games. Gordon Brown accepted no such gifts during his time as Labour leader and prime minister.
While Tony Blair led a jet-setting lifestyle – including accepting summer holidays with the regional president of Tuscany and in Cliff Richard’s holiday home in the Caribbean – he accepted fewer gifts than Starmer in his whole time as prime minister, and usually donated the value of any such freebie to a relevant charity.
‘An indulgent retreat’
Companies giving Starmer and his office gifts include the groceries delivery app GETIR, the fast food delivery company Just Eat, and Matthew Moulding, chief exec of the online retail warehouse firm The Hut Group, which has recently expanded into the hotels business.
openDemocracy understands Moulding put Starmer and three others up in his luxury Manchester hotel The King Street Townhouse on the night of 1 June. The boutique hotel has an infinity pool with views over Manchester’s iconic town hall. Its restaurant advertises “a dining experience you’ll remember forever” while The Telegraph has described it as “an indulgent retreat in the city centre”.
A spokesperson for The Hut Group would not comment on why they provided Starmer and others with free accommodation in their hotel.
Meanwhile, GETIR gave Starmer “four tickets with hospitality for Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal,” worth £1,600. The match attended by Starmer, who is an Arsenal fan, took place at the Spurs stadium, where the executive suite advertises “private gourmet dining” and “beautifully crafted menus… crafted by world famous chefs”.
Speaking to openDemocracy, a staff collective of GETIR employees in Germany, where the firm is more established than the UK, said it was “like working in a cartel”, and that employees are often too afraid to speak out against the violation of their rights. GETIR didn’t respond to openDemocracy’s request for comment.
Just Eat handed Starmer two sets of tickets in 2021 – to the British Kebab Awards, and the ‘Taste of London’ event, both of which he gave to staff in his office. The firm is currently facing legal action from lawyers representing thousands of its workers over allegations that it denies them basic rights like holiday pay and minimum wage by categorising them as self-employed.
Recent reports have indicated that Starmer is now considering rolling back on previous commitments to enhance rights for workers in sectors like the online delivery market, where jobs are notoriously precarious.
In total, Starmer has accepted tickets to 11 football matches, in most cases in exclusive executive suites, and also two rugby matches.
Starmer has also attended two glamorous days at the races, including six tickets with hospitality for Doncaster Races in autumn 2022 worth more than £3,000, thanks to the Arena Racing Company. The race course’s fine dining restaurant offers a package which includes a glass of prosecco on arrival, a “three course plated lunch” and exclusive views of the track for the day.
In June this year, Starmer accepted a “private box for four people at Epsom Downs Racecourse, including catering and admission tickets, total value £3,716”, courtesy of the Jockey Club. Epsom Downs’ VIP experience includes a champagne reception, free bar and a four-course meal, as well as exclusive views of the race track.
Speaking to openDemocracy, Matt Zarb-Cousin, director of Clean Up Gambling, said: “The same Labour leader that refuses to meet with climate justice campaigners is selling off his time to the highest bidder. Concerning for gambling reform campaigners is his willingness to accept hospitality from the gambling industry, including racing which has actively lobbied against affordability checks in defence of the operators. Policy drafted by the vested interests that have Starmer’s ear will only benefit corporations at the expense of protecting consumers.”
In January this year, Starmer accepted a meal for himself and an aide worth £380, as a gift from Google while he was in Davos at the World Economic Forum. In June, the Labour Party abandoned plans to introduce a digital tax on big tech firms like Google, which had been estimated to be worth £3bn.
North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, who quit the Labour Party last month and has spoken out against Starmer’s leadership, said: “I’ve been offered tickets for the executive boxes at [Newcastle United stadium] St James’ Park, expensive dinners by lobbyists, hospitality for sporting events – and I turn them all down. It’s wrong to take perks when you’re elected to do a job.
“Why does an MP need free tickets to the football or Coldplay concerts to do their job? At best it’s a culture of entitlement.”
Starmer is paid £149,682 a year for his work as an MP and as leader of the opposition, and also received an £18,450 advance for a book in 2022 from the Rupert Murdoch-owned publishing house Harper Collins. The Labour Party did not respond to openDemocracy’s request for comment.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was banned from standing as a candidate for the party earlier this year, has taken an almighty swipe at Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, after it was confirmed that the pair would not look to implement a wealth tax if elected into office.
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Keir Starmer also confirmed last month that would retain the two-child benefit limit – despite growing calls from poverty campaigners for the cap to be abandoned. The controversial stance has divided politicians within the Labour Party.
It’s another questionable policy u-turn from Starmer, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jeremy Corbyn. The two-time Prime Ministerial candidate ripped into Sir Keir, saying that a wealth tax could easily fund an extension to the two-child cap.
Corbyn also urged his successor to ‘side with those in need’:
“With the money raised from a 1-2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, we could afford to scrap the two-child benefit cap SEVENTEEN times over. Politics is about choices — and we should be on the side of those in need, not those with greed.” | Jeremy Corbyn
