Starmer claims ‘transparency’ is key as it emerges he and Gray accepted more football freebies

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Keir Starmer has defended his gift taking insisting that it is transparency that matters in two eve of conference interviews.

But the prime minister has also admitted that squabbling among his senior staff and rows surrounding Sue Gray are damaging his government after less than three months in office.

The prime minister has also sought to see off a row with unions and the left at the party conference in Liverpool by insisting there will be no new austerity as he and chancellor Rachel Reeves seek to get a control on public finances.

After taking £107,000 in gifts since 2019, more than two and a half times more than any other MP, the Labour leader was challenged on whether he was being hypocritical after criticising Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for the same.

He responded: “Rules matter. Transparency matters.”

“My criticism was actually more about Johnson than Sunak, because I don’t think [Sunak] needs to take donations.”

He said: “I’ve reiterated that this side of the election people are entitled to see whether you’ve taken gifts, and if so, what are they for?”

He has recently accepted the donation of a box at Arsenal so he can watch matches there without security concerns and remains unrepentant.

“Now that is a gift but I think accepting that is more understandable. If I insisted on going in the stands, that would cost the taxpayer more money through extra security.”

The prime minister said “people will judge me on delivery” not gifts.

But it came amid more allegations about gifts in the Mail on Sunday, which pointed out that hours after the row about Lord Alli paying £5,000 for his wife Victoria’s clothes broke, he enjoyed a freebie at a Spurs match with chief of staff Sue Gray.

The prime minister made it clear to the Observer that he wants to root out leakers from his operation who he feels are damaging it in its early stages.

He said: “It is my job to do something about that and I accept that responsibility. And that just damages everybody.”

But with the biggest row set to be over his plans to cut winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners to help fix a £22 billion black hole in public finances, he has promised to not usher in a new wave of austerity.

The prime minister was keen to counter suggestions he had only offered doom and gloom since coming to power, instead stressing Labour would deliver for voters.

"I want to answer the 'why' question as well as the 'what' question.

"We do need to say why and explain and set out and describe the better Britain that this ladders up to," he told the Observer.