‘Pretty farcical’: Keir Starmer downplays use of Waheed Alli’s £18m penthouse

PM says the public can make their own judgments about gifts and maintains no rules have been broken

Keir Starmer has said the row over him borrowing Labour donor Waheed Alli’s luxury flat for filming was “farcical” and that the public would come to their own judgments about his reasons for taking support from the peer.

The prime minister sought to downplay the row over the flat when he was asked about his gifts from the Labour peer while on a trip to New York, after weeks of questions about receiving clothing, spectacles and temporary use of a £18m penthouse from Alli.

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Long-term sick need to get back to work where they can, says Starmer

Labour leader says there should be more support to help people back into jobs, vowing to do ‘everything we can to tackle worklessness’

People who have been on long-term sickness leave and claiming benefits will need get back into the workplace “where they can”, Keir Starmer has said.

The prime minister said he wants more schemes across the country that support people back into work from long-term sickness because he believes in the “basic proposition that you should look for work”.

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Keir Starmer, his wife and ministers ‘to stop accepting clothing donations’

Lisa Nandy says Labour government will stop accepting gifted clothes as they don’t want voters to believe they are ‘living very different lives’

The prime minister and Labour ministers will stop accepting clothing donations because they don’t want voters to believe they are “living very different lives” to people who are “really struggling” in the country, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said.

Speaking before the opening of the Labour conference tomorrow, Nandy told the BBC the government wants to demonstrate that its priorities are “the country’s priorities”, after it emerged Keir Starmer, his wife Victoria, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner have all decided to stop accepting free gifts of clothes from Labour party donors.

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Keir Starmer alleged to have broken rules over party donor’s gifts to wife

The prime minister made a late declaration of a personal shopper and clothes for his wife paid for by Lord Alli

Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Waheed Alli.

The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the Sunday Times reported.

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