Joan Collins takes swipe at Keir Starmer over free clothing controversy

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Hollywood star Joan Collins took a cheeky swipe at Keir Starmer’s shopping habits during an episode of Loose Women on Monday (23 September).

The prime minister and Labour leader has come under fire in recent days over a decision to accept donations of expensive clothing from prominent and wealthy Labour donor, Lord Waheed Alli.

Items included tens of thousands of pounds of clothing for him and his wife Victoria, as well as multiple pairs of expensive spectacles.

Collins, 91, made the dig while discussing her shopping habits during her time starring as Alexis Carrington Colby in Dynasty.

“Of course I do like shopping so I spent a lot of time in Saks, and Neimans,” she told Ruth Langsford and her co-hosts.

“You’d go in and you’d get a shopper, a personal shopper, and you’d go ‘I’ll have that and that and that and that’. A bit like our prime minister.”

There was an audible reaction from the audience as laughter and “Oooh” rang out.

Starmer has vowed not to accept any further donations of clothing.

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Speaking further about her fashion choices on the programme, which remains one of the most successful of all time, Collins said she kept a lot of the costume jewellery that her scheming character wore on the show.

“I cannot believe they put me in such terrible hats,” she said.

The actor, also a bestselling author who has sold over 50 million copies of her work across the world, dished the dirt on the real dynamics behind the scenes.

“I love John James who played Jeff Colby, Emma Samms who played my daughter, and Stephanie Beecham and Kate O’Mara,” she said.

“But some of the others we didn’t get along so well.”

She added that the work was very difficult, “Basically, it was just really a grind. We never had any time off, weekends were spent doing publicity. I think I must have done 500 magazine covers and layouts while I was doing it.”

Meanwhile, earlier this week Sir Keir defended accepting free tickets to watch his beloved Arsenal football club. In an interview with Sky News, he said: “Security advice says I can’t go into the stands as it would cost the taxpayers a fortune, so I’ve been offered tickets where it’s more secure and we don’t have to use taxpayers money on additional security.”