It is understood that Starmer has sought advice from the registrar of MPs’ interests and that the donations will be recategorised as donations in kind of clothing. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images
Keir Starmer was given a further £16,000 worth of clothes by the Labour peer Waheed Alli, which was declared as money for his private office, the Guardian can reveal.
The donations, comprising £10,000 in October 2023 and £6,000 in February 2024, bring the total amount in gifted clothes to £32,000.
These latest gifts were not previously known about as they were described as being “for the private office of the leader of the opposition”.
The revelation is likely to reignite a row over the extent of donations that Starmer and some of his frontbench team acccepted while in opposition, much of it from Alli.
…
He has also been criticised for accepting tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of football and concert ticket freebies while leader of the opposition. His wife, Victoria, also received clothes as donations, as did Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister.
We also know that the company behind it invest themselves in the worst of the worst. However, for a final sting in the tail, look no further than what this hedge fund does with some of the cash it makes.
Labour Party: £4m in slush funding…?
As openDemocracy revealed:
The Labour Party’s largest-ever donation came from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund with shares worth hundreds of millions of pounds in fossil fuels, private health firms, arms manufacturers and asset managers.
While the £4m donation by Quadrature Capital is the sixth-largest in British political history, it is noteworthy not just for its size, but also its timing.
Of course, no one should really be surprised that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is accepting donations from hedge funds registered in tax havens. However, there were further revelations from openDemocracy. These include the fact that Quadrature had investments in fossil fuel, arms, and private healthcare companies.
However, the donation got its reward for Quadrature.
Interesting. Labour's new climate envoy Rachel Kyte is co-chair of climate advisory board of Quadrature Climate Foundation, linked to Quadrature hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands which invests in fossil fuel firms. Quadrature gave Labour £4m on 28 May, at the start of the…
dizzy: The on-the-take shower of sihts that currently govern us probably see nothing wrong with a rich offshore hedge fund buying a plump government role to promote it’s own interests. Years ago it was called corruption.
