ALTHOUGH it has only been in power since winning a landslide Commons majority in July's General Election, the Labour government has been dogged by controversial decisions and allegations of sleaze ever since Keir Starmer entered Downing Street.
These have seen the new government enjoy the shortest political honeymoon in the history of British Governments and Keir Starmer and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves see their favourability ratings plummet.
Starmer is now as unpopular as Rishi Sunak was in the months after he took over from the Tory disaster zone that was the Liz Truss administration, and all this before the Budget statement due in October, which has been widely trailed as being full of "tough decisions" – a phrase which has become recognised as political code for making poor people suffer so rich people can continue to profit.
Starmer is continuing to attract criticism for his relationship with millionaire Labour donor Lord Wahid Alli.
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Alli was the source of Starmer's much criticised gifts of expensive suits and designer glasses as well as the gifting to Starmer's wife of clothing and the services of a personal shopper.
Immediately after the election Alli was granted a security pass to Downing Street despite holding no government position.
Starmer's office gave no explanation about why Alli was given the pass, nor did they say who had authorised it.
When the story broke and allegations were made that it smacked of cash for access, Alli's security pass was withdrawn, again without explanation.
Now Starmer is being asked to explain why he has repeatedly made use of Alli's luxury flat in central London.
Starmer has claimed that about £20,000 he had declared from Lord Alli for unspecified accommodation was for his teenager to study for exams in a “peaceful” atmosphere.
However, Starmer also appears to have made use of the flat during the pandemic in order to record a video – in which he posed in front of photos of his family – telling people to work from home.
Presumably in Starmer's case he meant the luxury home of a multimillionaire friend.
Questioned about the use of Alli's flat, a clearly tetchy Starmer refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong, and sidestepped questioning from Sky News' Beth Rigby about whether he was aware of how it looked to the public to travel across London during lockdown to record a video in a crony's luxury flat.
Starmer kept shifting the subject back to his claim that he was only protecting his son and refused to address the other occasions on which he'd made use of his rich mate's flat.
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It's one thing to have a millionaire pal who will give you free use of his luxury penthouse flat in Central London, even though very few pensioners who will struggle to heat their homes this winter are so fortunate.
However, it's a whole other level of cronyism when you give that mate a security pass allowing him unfettered access to the inner sanctum of the British government.
The continuing controversy over declarations of gifts and donations by MPs and senior ministers overshadowed the Labour conference, with criticism aimed at both the PM and his ministers for accepting luxury gifts from wealthy donors while announcing cuts to Winter Fuel Payments and refusing to abolish the two child cap on benefits.
As a result of the backlash Starmer and other senior ministers were forced to say they would no longer take donations for clothing now they are in government, but said nothing about receiving more free tickets and hospitality to events, such as the £4000 worth of tickets to a Taylor Swift concert he accepted from the Premier League, or free luxury accommodation.
With this Labour government it appears to be another day, another crony.
Does the UK’s new climate envoy profit from fossil fuels?
Starmer has just appointed Rachel Kyte to the revived UK Government climate envoy role – a post which when it last existed commanded a salary of at least £130,000.
Kyte is linked to a Cayman Islands-based hedge fund which donated £4 million to the Labour Party.
Kyte is the co-chair of the Quadrature Climate Foundation’s advisory board, which was founded by the same people behind the hedge fund Quadrature Capital.
The hedge fund, which holds hundreds of millions of pounds of shares in fossil fuels, private health firms, and arms manufacturers, donated £4 million to Labour ahead of the General Election.
Naturally, this had nothing whatsoever to do with Starmer's decision to appoint her to an important government position.
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Anyway, for someone like Kyte £130,000 a year is small change.
She can now have a key role in formulating government policy on climate change while she makes her real money from fossil fuels, arms deals, and private health.
According to its latest filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission from August, Quadrature had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in oil firms including Cenovus, which earlier this year was fined for an Atlantic oil spill.
The hedge fund also held $6 million in arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, investments in US private healthcare firms and massive asset management firms such as Blackstone and KKR.
Quadrature's donation of £4 million to the Labour Party only came to light months after the election because it had been made in a brief window where the election donation reporting rules had not come into force after Rishi Sunak announced the date of the ballot.
It is said to be the sixth-largest donation in British political history.
But of course they gave the money out of charitably-minded public spirit.
Wes Streeting said that political donations should be applauded as they are as laudable as donations to charity.
But then I don't expect to gain influence over British Government foreign policy when I bung a couple of quid to a charity providing medical aid to refugees in Gaza.
It's worth reiterating that we are only three months into this Labour government that promised 'change' and already it's all looking terribly Tory.
It's only going to get worse.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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