Sir Keir Starmer campaigned in the general election about being a politician who would do things differently and lead a government of service.
His was a message of change not just about how he would run the country, but also about how he would lead the government change. It was billed not just as a change of power from one party to another but as a change of culture too.
If the polls are anything to go by, that message has been blunted and his reputation tarnished in the early days of his government over the row around Sir Keir’s freebies. In the last parliament, Sir Keir claimed more freebies – £107,145 – than any other politician.
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The handouts ranged from clothing (£16,200) to football freebies (more than £35,000), concert tickets, rugby matches and the races (£17,000).
He has also just declared £20,000 in accommodation during the election, borrowing a rich donor’s multi-million penthouse so his son could study for his GCSEs away from the media scrums around the Starmer’s family home in Kentish Town in London.
New polling put out by YouGov on Wednesday found that three out of four people thought donations of concert tickets and money for clothes to politicians should be banned.
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Meanwhile, in the early days of the government, the PM’s personal popularity ratings have fallen sharply.
A fresh survey by Opinium reveals that the prime minister’s approval rating has dropped 45 points to -26 since he became the country’s leader. It now makes him – by a point – less popular than his predecessor Rishi Sunak.
There are undoubtedly a number of factors playing into Sir Keir’s drop in popularity – not least his decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.
But talk to colleagues around him, and the row over freebies has caused some consternation. At best, it has pulled the government off message and on to the back foot – at worst, it has become a personal problem for a prime minister who promised to do things differently, and now is having the charge levelled against him that he’s like those who went before, taking freebies from rich friends.
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Sir Keir might find that uncomfortable, or vehemently disagree with it, but can he understand that while he is following all the rules, the perception, the optics of claiming all these freebies while asking people to take the pain of difficult choices is an issue for him and his government?
In our interview, it was evident that if the prime minister saw the tensions between his promises about how he would conduct politics and claiming sizeable freebies, he did not want to acknowledge that in an interview that was far tenser than I had anticipated and in which, at times, he seemed palpably angry.
The prime minister made the point that the claims were in the rules and that “behind some of those numbers, there is a human story”.
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He explained how he has to now sit in corporate hospitality when he watches his beloved Arsenal with his son because of security reasons and does not want to cost the taxpayer more money by sitting in his usual seat in the stands.
And when it comes to the £20,000 accommodation he claimed in the election, the prime minister has a very clear answer: he did it to protect his son, who was studying for his GCSEs at the time and needed a peaceful place to study where he did not have to run the gauntlet of journalists hanging outside the house.
Many of you will think these are reasonable explanations, some of you will not.
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But what is incontrovertible is the volume of freebies Sir Keir has claimed.
When I asked him about clothing, he said he would no longer accept donations. When I asked him about concert tickets – Taylor Swift, Adele, Coldplay – he indicated he might still go, saying it was a matter of judgement.
In short, the prime minister point-blank refused to engage in questions around the optics of his claims and how they might undermine his political messaging and personal reputation with the public.
Does it matter? One of the charges brought against Sir Keir during the election by political opponents was he was a politician who said one thing and did another.
The Conservatives campaigned hard on the notion that he would say no tax rises for working people and then put up taxes – we will see what he does in the budget.
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And there were those on his own side who lost trust in him after he campaigned on a left-wing agenda to become leader only to move away from that once he had won.
Whether he likes it or not, thinks it’s fair or not, will admit it or not, the row over freebies has raised questions about how much of that “change” was rhetoric and how much is real?
