Gentlemen, what would you splash out on if someone gave you thousands of pounds to update your wardrobe?

Something a bit more glamorous than a £50 rucksack and a pair of £85 trainers I’m guessing. A designer suit, perhaps, or a pair of handmade shoes?

Not Sir Keir Starmer. Despite trousering the best part of £20,000 from millionaire Labour party donor Waheed Alli last April (£16,200 for a ‘work wardrobe’ plus £2,485 spent on ‘multiple pairs of glasses’ his register of interests reveals) Starmer remains wedded to ‘normcore’, a look characterised by unpretentious clothing. If you think unremarkability could be a fashion trend, Starmer has nailed it.

At the recent, very wet Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, Starmer even took his own anorak! He was photographed surrounded by fellow statesmen and women in pacamacs handed out by the organisers. How very British. If clothes send out a message, that midnight blue outerwear presumably conveyed that he’s practical and organised – the kind of guy who plans ahead. The thought of getting caught out by a downpour, as Rishi Sunak was on the day he announced the general election, probably gives him nightmares.

But then Sunak was deemed to be too ‘fashion’ and his wardrobe choices controversial for their extravagance – £490 Prada suede loafers, £335 Common Projects trainers, a £795 Reiss jacket, and a £1,250 Canada Goose parka.

Only a few months ago, the former prime minister wore a pair of viral Adidas Samba trainers with suit trousers, prompting uproar from Samba fans, who accused him of ruining their cool credentials. Sunak looked too try-hard, too obviously ‘I’m stylish! I’m in the know!’

Starmer veers the other way, spending his donation from Lord Alli on ‘unremarkable’ clothes. He recently swapped his trademark £500 Lindberg glasses for a £240 pair by Garrett Leight. As a man of the people he prefers Adidas’s £85 Gazelle trainers, favoured by normcore dads the country over, as well as Brad Pitt and Harry Styles. They are the perfect fusion of just enough cool with ‘standard dad at a barbecue’.

A £135 black puffer jacket by popular brand The North Face – a go-to of both middle-aged geography teachers on rambling holidays in the Lake District and Gen Z fashion influencers – is a clever, not-so-cool-it’s-cringe choice. Where Rishi favoured a £750 Tumi backpack personalised with his initials, Starmer has not only been spotted with that sturdy £50 Eastpak rucksack – but paired it with a £50 England hoodie.

While Sunak reputedly owns a Rolex and a Chopard, a recent headline in Esquire magazine declared that ‘of course Keir Starmer is a Tissot man’ – he wears the PRX style by the mid-market brand, whose prices start in the £300 realm, and are the epitome of middle England taste.

Menswear commentator Derek Guy concluded in a recent article for GQ that ‘There’s little to say about Keir Starmer’s clothes… his outfits have not gained the same level of controversy [as Rishi Sunak’s], as they’re never too fashionable or frumpy. They are, quite literally, unremarkable’. Indeed. Even for an interview with British Vogue in July, Starmer paired a £150 jacket with £119.95 trainers by the middle class’s go-to suiting brand Charles Tyrwhitt.

So, where has the £16,200 gone, you might ask? Even his most extravagant purchase – a £500 bomber jacket by French label Sandro – would barely have made a dent in this wardrobe fund.

My guess would be he’s quietly splashed out on some Savile Row suits. Tailor Renzo Khan reportedly alters Starmer’s off-the-peg suits, but maybe now he’s gone bespoke. He’ll have been clever though. Tell-tell details on Sunak’s suits gave away that they were bespoke creations by Henry Herbert costing in the realm of £3,500. Starmer’s will be more nondescript. Again, remarkable for their unremarkability.

Legend has it that before he became Tony Blair’s press secretary and was working as a journalist, Alastair Campbell started a rumour that John Major tucked his shirts into his pants. It is said to have caused irreparable damage to Major’s reputation.

In recent years, scrutiny of politicians’ clothes has only increased. Rishi Sunak may never live down his trouser controversy – were they always just a little bit too short – or was it a style statement? Starmer’s run-of-the-mill dressing might prove foil to such frivolity… but even unremarkability comes with a pricetag.

Luckily for Starmer, Lord Alli is happy to foot the bill.