THE MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: A refusal to be beguiled by gifts is a sign of a man who is in power to serve his country, rather than simply to serve himself

Has there ever been a government which so quickly dissolved into embarrassment and confusion? And has a crisis ever arisen over such a simple issue?

The lasting power of the stories about suits, glasses, dresses and penthouses is this: everybody can see that the actions of the Premier and his colleagues have been unwise, greedy and ridiculous. 

As The Mail on Sunday reveals today, Sir Keir Starmer and his government are still entangled in a web of lobbyists and favours which are deeply worrying, even if they are within the rules.

Sir Keir recently shared a football hospitality box at Tottenham Hotspur’s ground (tickets supplied by the club) with his chief of staff Sue Gray and with Katie Perrior, a noted lobbyist who once backed highly controversial plans for a new breakaway football Super League. Ms Perrior also numbers tech giants such as YouTube and Google among her clients.

Who will be pleased to know that the head of our government uses his precious time (which we pay for) in such ways? And who, in the wider context of the earlier allegations, cannot understand that it is unwise for a Prime Minister or a Cabinet Minister to accept luxury gifts from a multi-millionaire?

Sir Keir Starmer and his government are still entangled in a web of lobbyists and favours which are deeply worrying, even if within the rules

The Prime Minister cheering on Arsenal while at a match last month. Who in the wider context cannot understand that it’s not wise for a Prime Minister or Cabinet Minister to accept gifts from a multi-millionaire?

Well, the sad answer to that is that it was the recipients of the presents who did not grasp it, though the slow, shuffling way in which they have eventually disclosed these treats and baubles suggests they had at least enough sense to try to keep it quiet once it dawned on them that they had bungled. But this only seems to have occurred to them after it was too late.

The almost comical conclusion from Sir Keir and his newly smart, freshly pampered colleagues is that they won’t take any more such gifts. 

No more ‘work clothes’, a phrase that brings to mind the sort of overalls a toolmaker might use, rather than a very costly suit. No more high-end eyewear. No more stays in Lord Alli’s luxury apartments (how many does he have?). No more VIP tickets to the football or Taylor Swift concerts. Well and good, but what about the seductive presents you have already received and enjoyed?

This attempt to end the mockery is not quite on the scale of, say, President Richard Nixon trying to wriggle out of the Watergate affair by promising not to organise any more burglaries of his political opponents. Burglaries are obviously worse than placing yourself in personal debt to wealthy donors, or, for instance, allowing someone else to buy dresses for your wife (what an odd thing to agree to). But it is as ludicrous.

The mistake cannot now be undone, though it would be a good idea if everyone involved gave the money back, or repaid Lord Alli for their various penthouse stays, birthday parties etc at the market rate. 

The clothes and glasses, meanwhile, should be very publicly auctioned for charity, perhaps at this week’s Labour conference in Liverpool. Or they could be given to the People’s History Museum in Manchester, to stand alongside the alleged ‘donkey jacket’ once unwisely worn to the Cenotaph by the late Michael Foot, a Labour leader who certainly wouldn’t have accepted a free suit from a millionaire.

Anyone in the Cabinet, for years to come, is going to have to look as if he or she now shops at Marks & Spencer and goes to Specsavers – which is no bad thing anyway.

Meanwhile, it is hard for any normal person to sympathise with the Prime Minister’s football-watching problems. He wanted to be Prime Minister. He must have known that this would require increased security. He can therefore put up with watching Arsenal games on the TV just like everyone else.

Already, the jokes are beginning, such as ‘Why shouldn’t the PM’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, earn more than her boss? After all, she has to pay for her own clothes, and her own glasses.’ 

Jokes are already beginning such as ‘Why shouldn’t the PM’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, earn more than her boss? After all, she has to pay for her own clothes, and her own glasses.’

And it is notable that the most cogent criticisms of the Starmer gift policy are coming from the traditional Left. Lady (Harriet) Harman was absolutely right when she said that Sir Keir should have admitted that accepting the gifts was a mistake from the start. His initial attempts to justify or excuse his folly only made things worse.

The veteran Corbynite John McDonnell also scored a direct hit on Sir Keir by recalling that he is named after the Edwardian Labour leader Keir Hardie – who went to Parliament in his working man’s rough tweed suit and ‘refused to ape the Tories and Liberals in their expensive frock coats’. Plenty of Labour voters will agree.

There is also the question of what – if anything – Lord Alli hoped to gain from all this lavish present-giving. Some have said he is naturally generous, and no doubt this is so. But being generous to people who hold – or are likely to hold – high office is rather different from just being open-handed with friends who have no power.

Though not much given to political statements, he is on record in the past as an enthusiast for regulation of the Press. No doubt he is even keener on that policy now, as (we may suspect) are all the others caught in these revelations. But as things have turned out, any sign of moves against the Press by Sir Keir will now cause more trouble than they would otherwise have done.

And it is not as if this storm of embarrassment – breaking just in time for what was supposed to be a triumphant Party conference – is the Government’s only problem. Millions disbelieve their excuses for planned miserable tax and welfare policies. Opposition to tax increases is already growing before they are even announced. 

The handling of plans to cut the winter fuel payment has been a textbook example of How Not to Do It. Mass immigration remains unchecked. Government borrowing has reached astounding heights. Recently released prisoners roam the streets.

Sir Keir still has his huge majority and it would be a huge mistake for Labour to remove the leader that returned them to office after 14 years

Sir Keir still has his huge majority, of course, and his Labour Party is immovable for years to come thanks to one of the oddest elections in our country’s long history. And it simply would not do for Labour, so soon after achieving their first majority for 14 years, to ditch the man who led them back to office. To do so would be to admit that they had made a mistake so huge, in choosing him as leader, that they are nearly as much to blame for this mess as he is.

These events are a little like the Formula One affair in the early months of the Blair government – mainly because they have come too soon to do truly serious damage.

Yet that episode was almost entirely confined to Sir Anthony himself. Many of his Cabinet colleagues were appalled by it. His Chancellor, Gordon Brown, was and remains an immensely serious man of great probity, who refused all gifts while in office and left Downing Street in debt because he paid his own way while he lived there.

His behaviour is a reproach to all those entangled in the Lord Alli affair. Most of us would prefer to have that sort of person in office to what we have now. For a refusal to be flattered and beguiled by gifts and soft words betokens a serious man who is in pow