The spiralling row over freebies is threatening to overshadow Labour’s annual conference, which starts in a few day’s time.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she will not accept such donations in the future (Image: Getty)
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been caught up in Labour’s freebies row after it emerged that she accepted £7,500 towards the cost of clothes since the start of last year.
The Chancellor – who will no longer accept such donations – took the cash from a friend, Juliet Rosenfeld, to pay for worth clothing including suits.
While the donations were declared, the Chancellor did not explicitly state that the money was spent on clothing, prompting more questions about transparency in the wake of revelations about Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner.
Ms Reeves’ team has consulted parliamentary authorities and believes the declarations were in line with the rules, because the donations were in the form of money as opposed to direct gifts of clothing.
Nevertheless, the revelation comes at awkward time for the Government over donations accepted by senior figures.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir and Ms Rayner have also announced they will stop taking free clothing after calls from Labour MPs for the party leadership to do so.
The move comes after days of negative headlines about Sir Keir taking clothing and glasses funded by donations, including £16,200 in “work clothing” for himself and £5,000 in personal shopping for his wife from Labour peer Lord Alli.
The timing of this decision, just days before Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, indicates concerns within No 10 about the impact of this controversy on the government’s public image.
Despite initial attempts to downplay the issue, it seems that the party leadership has been forced to reconsider the appropriateness of such donations.
Angela Rayner arrives at Downing Street (Image: Getty)
While the decision currently only applies to clothing, other gifts – such as tickets to Arsenal games matches and concerts – remain a point of contention, with several Labour MPs calling for stricter rules across the board. Ms Reeves, Sir Keir, and Ms Rayner are now facing pressure from their own party to repay the donations they’ve received.
Sir Keir earlier this week sought to defend his decision to accept football freebies, insisting prevented him from sitting in his regular seat.
He said: “If I don’t accept hospitality, I can’t go to the game. You could say: ‘Well, bad luck.’ That’s why gifts have to be registered. But never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”
Party insiders are understood to be very angry about the ongoing row.
David Lammy defends Starmer over clothing donations
Speaking about the PM, one told the Daily Telegraph: “He should stop taking freebies immediately. It gives the impression that he’s more interested in himself than he is about the difficult situation facing the poorest in our country who we are supposed to represent.
“I don’t know of anyone who thinks this is a good idea. Friends and colleagues are mortified.” Baroness Harman, the former acting Labour leader, told Sky News: “I think doubling down and trying to justify it is… making things worse.”
She added: “He just needs to say, right, with hindsight, I’m going to do things differently and this is how I’m going to do it in future.”
Since the start of last year, Ms Reeves has received four donations, totalling £7,367, from Ms Rosenfeld, described by Ms Reeves’ team as a long-standing friend.
Ms Rosenfeld, a psychotherapist and author, is the widow of Andrew Rosenfeld, a multimillionaire businessman who died in 2015 at the age of 52 from cancer. He became a significant Labour donor and lent £1 million to Tony Blair’s party before the 2005 general election.
