A LABOUR MP defended Keir Starmer’s wife being gifted clothes and the services of a personal shopper because the PM’s spouse “works for the NHS” and is “not a millionairess”.
Labour backbencher Paul Waugh, who worked as a political correspondent before the election, said that the Prime Minister had been “scrupulous” and transparent in declaring gifts from donor Lord Alli.
The Prime Minister has been reported to the parliamentary standards watchdog after failing to declare on time gifts including clothes, a personal shopper and alterations for Victoria Starmer (below).
Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live, Waugh was asked why the Prime Minister and his wife could not “buy their own clothes”.
The Rochdale MP responded: “Well it’s worth saying that Keir Starmer’s wife works for the NHS, she’s not a millionairess, she’s not someone of grand origins and she needed a bit of extra help in this very unusual role of being the PM’s spouse.
Labour MP Paul Waugh explains that its ok for politicians to take bribes so long as they're declared #politicslive pic.twitter.com/6F1IF4v71m
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) September 16, 2024
“But the key thing here is the one about transparency. There’s no smoking gun of an abuse of public office here or in terms of donations, too. What’s happened is the Prime Minister was being extra scrupulous in going back and looking at the records, what did we need to declare and had we declared everything we needed to.”
Waugh later clarified that “everyone can afford to buy their own clothes” after being challenged on the gifts being declared late.
He added: “I’m not a former fashion correspondent, I’m a former political correspondent, so don’t get me on the details of dresses.
“She obviously felt she needed some extra help and it’s not as if this is like the Tories accepting five million quid from Frank Hester who said some racist and dangerous things about Diane Abbott or like Rishi Sunak spending £40m of taxpayers’ money on a vanity helicopter just to avoid the general public, so we’re not in the same league here as all those other things that happened in the past.”
Waugh also said Starmer had declared the gifts eventually and argued it was “not as if a newspaper suddenly exposed this as being a new dress that hadn’t been declared”.
He added: “It was the PM himself that did it and the only expose was the fact that he declared it.”
