Let’s call it the Boris Johnson test. When our rightly disgraced former prime minister was collecting numerous freebies at a time of acute social crisis, were you outraged?
It’s only eight weeks into Keir Starmer’s administration, but he has made clear how he intends to rule. The refusal to scrap George Osborne’s two-child benefit limit imposes poverty on 250,000 children, and drives 850,000 kids further into hardship and squalor. Labour’s decision to radically restrict winter fuel payments in England and Wales, meanwhile, will withdraw support from 800,000 impoverished older people who are eligible for pension credit but don’t receive it – an inevitable evil generated by means testing – as well as another 1 million pensioners just above the breadline.
These are choices Labour has made in power. Meanwhile, there has been no talk of meaningful taxes on the mega-rich to raise revenue and ensure security for all citizens from cradle to grave (the richest 350 British households have a combined wealth of £795bn: bigger than Poland’s annual economy). Then there are the choices that cast Starmer’s own behaviour in an unflattering light, as he inherits a country that has suffered an unprecedented squeeze in living standards.
Here is a man who has clearly long had a taste for comfort: when he was director of prosecutions, taxpayers reportedly coughed up nearly £250,000 for his travel costs, including first-class flights and a chauffeur-driven car. Apparently he deemed the latter a requirement, even though he lived just five or so miles from the Crown Prosecution Service offices, which were easily accessible through a direct tube journey. Notably, he claimed nearly three times more expenses than his successor, who had the job for the same amount of time.
Look at this behaviour as Labour leader, and something of a pattern emerges. By last summer, Starmer had accepted more freebies than all Labour leaders since 1997 combined. As analysis by openDemocracy uncovered, that included multiple gifts from wealthy donors and companies, days at the races, an Adele gig, two Coldplay concerts and hospitality at Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur matches.
In total, he received £76,000 worth of freebies in the last parliament. These ranged from hotel stays to more than 20 football tickets (bear in mind that, as leader of the opposition, his £128,291 annual salary hardly left him wanting). Throw in VIP tickets courtesy of the Premier League to see Taylor Swift, worth £4,000, during the general election campaign and, well, you get the gist.
Notably, Starmer also received “work clothing” worth an astonishing £16,200, and “multiple pairs of glasses” worth £2,485 from the Labour lord and businessperson Waheed Alli. This is the Labour donor who has since been embroiled in a cronyism row after being granted a pass to No 10. Again, apply the Boris Johnson test: would you be perfectly comfortable with a wealthy Tory donor being granted access to the heart of power after showering our ex-PM with expensive suits?
This matters. A love of the finer things and a willingness to accept generosity from the well-to-do helps bind politicians to the interests of the rich. You inevitably feel gratitude towards those doling out gifts, and you spend time in the company of those with thriving bank balances living the high life.
All of this cements a sense of class solidarity. When Labour scrapped the Tories’ VIP helicopter contract, they said it represented a past government that was “totally out of touch with the problems facing the rest of the country”. Does the same apply to the current prime minister or not?
As it is, Starmer is the most unpopular leader of the opposition to be elected prime minister since party leader ratings began in 1977. His ratings are dropping like a stone: one poll shows him on minus 16, down 27 points from where it was last month.
The looming attack on pensioners’ entitlements and accusations of cronyism after the appointment of multiple loyalists to civil service posts have not, to say the least, gone down well. What happens when energy bills surge, winter bites, and projected cuts hammer already ravaged government departments?
Starmer’s speech promising misery now for long-term gain is merely a less optimistic riff on David Cameron’s opening statement as prime minister in 2010. The lack of a vision for a crisis-ridden nation becomes ever more apparent to the public.
Everyone now agrees that the warning signs with Johnson were there from the start. That Starmer self-evidently craves the lifestyle of the jet-setting rich, while imposing destitution on children and pensioners alike, well, the evidence is glaringly apparent. And an already unsympathetic public is going to notice it.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
