TROUBLED days in Downing Street, and it’s not just the political rats in a sack.
Rachel Reeves has found her freebie flat above the shop so infested with mice she’s had to order vast quantities of Tupperware boxes to protect the contents of her food cupboard.
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It should be the stuff of dreams for spin-doctors: The image of a prudent Chancellor, not willing to waste her cornflakes or the remnants of a bag of pasta, while warning Britain needs to tighten its belt.
But the Tupperware Chancellor vibe — looking after the pennies at home and for the nation — has taken a bit of a hit as Reeves is dragged into the growing donor scandal now threatening to upend Labour’s first conference in power in a decade and a half.
“Change Begins” is the slogan here in Liverpool, but it feels more like “Keep the Change”, with the top of the party mired in an ever- expanding freebies bonanza.
Unsightly spectacle
The handling of the saga over the last two weeks has been appalling, and it was only once the waves of sleaze began to lap at the doors of the Treasury did any clear and decisive action seem to come from the Government.
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Friday afternoon’s late decision to declare that the PM, Chancellor and Deputy PM (in name only) Angie Rayner would no longer accept donations of clothes came days too late to quell public anger.
But it only came once Reeves had been approached by journalists about her own £7,500 worth of donated clothes — which, despite the Government promising a new era of transparency, had been registered as vague office support.
Ahead of what is likely to be one of the most significant Budgets of the post-pandemic age — and one that is going to take delicate handling in the wake of screwing over ten million pensioners — you can see why Reeves would be keen to stamp out the story.
It was the killer question from ITV Scotland on Friday that stumped Sir Keir Starmer: “You earn £167,000 a year. If you need help buying your wardrobe then why shouldn’t pensioners on £13,000 get help with their heating?”
Gulp!
It took far too long for a clearly misfiring No10 operation to try to close the story down properly, after more than two weeks of increasingly baffling excuses.
First it was “Move along people, nothing to see here,” then it was, “Actually, taking freebie dresses for the PM’s wife is a good thing as she looks nice on the world stage.”
Then it was, “All this is a big right-wing newspaper smear,” a claim shot apart by BBC Political Editor Chris Mason’s top scoop that Sue Gray — the woman who, ironically, ran Whitehall’s anti-sleaze team for years — was paid more than the PM.
What crap advice she appears to have been giving him on freeloading for her £170,000 is baffling most observers.
Finally, we had the new low of Rayner yesterday saying she had to take all the freebies because she is “working class” and besides that, it was all fine because the Tories did the same and all politicians get gifts.
I may be paraphrasing slightly, but barely. So much for the mantra of change.
However, other questions remain that get to the heart of the hypocrisy at the centre of this row.
What exactly did the ever-so-generous Lord Alli want when he was throwing the cash around?
I only ask because that’s the exact question Labour posed day in, day out throughout opposition.
There was no benefit of the doubt given to the evil Tories, the presumption of corruption immediate and without quarter.
As Angela Rayner, who didn’t tell Parliament that she was joined by her special “friend” on a freebie stay in New York on Lord Alli, once asked of Boris Johnson: “The public have a right to know who paid for his luxury holiday, how much they paid for it and what they might expect in return for their generosity.”
These aren’t my rules, these are the rules Labour set for anyone else.
Take David Lammy, who decreed that Johnson taking a donation for wallpaper in the Downing Street flat was his “last scrap of integrity” gone.
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Rules Labour set
Yet there he was, defending the unsightly spectacle of the PM’s free spectacles.
But it is Starmer himself who set the bar absurdly high, standing in the Downing Street garden vowing to restore it to public good, only to be exposed a few days later for pimping it out for Lord Alli to host a party for Labour donors.
It was Starmer, reportedly given the use of a corporate box at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, who allowed the Mr Rules mantra to come to define him, and Starmer who put clearing out the stables at the heart of his pitch to the country.
I’m afraid the PM only has himself to blame for this one, however duff the advice he appears to be getting from his expensive aide Sue.
FEARLESS interrogator Lewis Goodall beat up on Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson on his LBC show yesterday, over taking donations from Lord Alli to pay for her 40th birthday party.
What the lefty presenter failed to tell his listeners, however, was not only did he attend the glittery bash last year, he also asked for his wife to be invited too.
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THEY will all smile and clap on the stage, but Cabinet tensions are growing under the bonnet.
Ministers are spitting tacks on bungling No10’s turf wars that all seem to have Sue Gray at their heart, openly discussing how Starmer has made the powerful adviser both unsackable yet could see her walk away by her own choice.
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There are also deep reservations in some parts about Starmer’s decision to allow a vote on assisted dying.
Starmer’s decision to go to Paris and Germany has put the EU’s noses out of joint, meaning those leading the “reset” efforts are getting the cold shoulder in Brussels.
And the Chancellor fired a public shot across the Business Secretary’s bows this weekend after he called for more working from home.
But most anger is aimed at Transport Secretary Louise Haigh, who I am told “blindsided” her colleagues with her eye-watering pay rise for striking train drivers.
The PM is furious and those closest to him blame Haigh for half the mess the Government has got into for cutting winter fuel payments while handing militant unions every demand.