IT’S worth remembering given the nightmare week Labour have had that this is the grown-ups back in charge, government restored to “service”.
Whose service, exactly? Well, the Prime Minister’s obviously – given that he’s seemingly the only one not feeling the pinch of the punitive measures his Government are already putting in place.
This is government restored to the service of getting nice wee freebies (anyone remember Boris Johnson’s wallpaper?) while the rest of us suffer what we must.
Speaking as someone who, living a stone’s throw from Arsenal’s stadium, happens to know a lot of Gooners, I can tell you that Keir Starmer already occupied an envious position as the owner of a season ticket.
Getting a ticket for any fixture – even a fairly low-stakes one with a bottom of the league team – involves taking a blood oath, participating in animal sacrifice, winning University Challenge against Imperial College on your Tod and stumping up a full month’s rent just for good measure.
In short, it’s not easy, or cheap. Having a season ticket already marks you out as pretty well-heeled, well-connected, just plain lucky or most likely a combination of the three.
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When Starmer makes the argument that for him to watch Arsenal from the stands it would cost the taxpayer loads of money in extra security costs, he is of course right.
But the argument falls down in its second act, when he asks us to be forgiving of him getting a freebie from a huge corporation where a good many fellow fans must be content with watching the game at the pub or even at home.
None of this to mention getting his glasses, suits and even frocks for his wife gratis courtesy of Labour sugar daddy Lord Alli.
Late on Friday, Labour high heid yins announced their were kicking their free gear habit for good.
Where his argument about the tickets evaporates completely is that whichever box package is being gifted to the Prime Minister, he could probably afford to buy it himself.
Starmer’s take-home pay is £166,786. After tax, that should be a monthly income of something in the region of £7,872.
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And he's not just walked into No 10 from the shop floor. Prior to politics, he was the most senior prosecutor in England and before that well-remunerated silk.
Most accounts have him as a multi-millionaire, but I'll put it in more straightforward terms: he is absolutely minted.
He could well afford to dip into his wallet and get some kind of hospitality package for the 19 home games Arsenal play in the Premier League. It's only around £8000 a pop.
And if he couldn't, Starmer could always tap his boss, sorry chief of staff, Sue Gray (above) – who makes £170,000 per year.
Revelations about the former partygate investigator’s pay have incensed Government insiders whose pay has apparently been cut by Gray herself.
It’s all quite unedifying stuff, with Labour briefcases briefing furiously against Gray in the pages of The Times and to the BBC.
This for people between whom it was scarcely possible to get a fag paper before the election.
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It led to Starmer declaring, with the air of a beleaguered European leader struggling to keep together a fractious coalition, that he was “completely in control”.
A cynic might say that this is what you get with an ideologically empty political project whose only aims were destroying their internal critics then coasting to victory against the feeblest opponents imaginable.
But it’s undeniably true to suggest this is all the more damaging because holier-than-thou Starmer set himself up for such a fall with every promise of change he made on the election trail.
Voters never really recovered trust in politics after the expenses scandal. Why should they?
The same people who are telling you there is no money left find that in their comfortable bubble, there is actually plenty – just not for you, pleb.
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