Sir Keir Starmer given Arsenal hospitality box worth thousands

35 comments

1. In fairness he’s not going to be able to sit and watch from the stands.

   I’m happier with this and it being declared than £50,000 being donated by someone under investigation for his Wife’s clothing and styling etc.

2. I’m sure it’s worth something to Arsenal to have him there on a regular basis. It’s not a good look though especially with the upcoming regulation on the Premiership he wants to get passed. 

3. I think ‘given’ is possibly the wrong word to use here. It’s not like he’s going to own it. It’s more accurate to say he’s been given the use of a VIP box.

   He’s a lifelong Arsenal fan and season ticket holder. His security detail will not let him sit in his usual seat so the club have done the decent thing.

4. If you work in low-level government and receive a gift from a third party you’ve been working with, you have to fill out forms and depending on the value its either given to charity or returned. But people at the high level always seem to accept lavish gifts with no issues.

   The worst is these high-level people who actually approach clubs and venues asking for tickets to things like cup finals and gigs like they can’t already afford it.

5. It’s amazing what brazen corruption and lobbying the shills will justify for an mp as long as they wear a red tie.

6. Look, I’m no fan of Starmer but is this and the clothes ‘scandal’ is the worst they can find? Seriously desperate ‘journalism’

7. And yet national story of street cleaner who was gifted money for a holiday in Portugal by his community told of how he could not accept because of anti corruption and bribery policies. Meanwhile this cunt and his wife get ££££££ for dresses and football tickets. Where is the sense in PM getting freebies willy nilly?

8. If he continues to pay for his regular season ticket (which I understand he has done so for decades) I see no problem in him being accommodated in a corporate area for security reasons at no additional cost. He wants to watch Arsenal as an ordinary fan. As prime minister security considerations make sitting in the stand difficult, it’s not a jolly, it’s letting him carry on life while being prime minister.

   Some of the glasses, clothes and concert tickets are getting ridiculous though.

9. I don’t get why they accept the gifts and then they can afford paying for it considering what they earning

10. All politicans should be automatically banned from accepting gifts. It just seems dodgy as fuck that people who can affect our daily lives whilst they can easily afford shite like this.

11. Sick to death of the lot of them,there all the same ,takers and liars.all in it for themselves,they don’t give a flying fuck about any of us bar there own.

12. Whether its all legally above board or not, did Kier not think about the optics of this? On the one hand he will have to make some brutal decisions for the country but on the other hand he seems to be welcoming with open arms any freebies thrown to him and his wife.

    You can just say no Kier, not today at least, maybe in a year or later when under your watch the UK ship is finally beginning to turn in the right direction.

    Just from a purely PR point on view I would say no to any perk just to avoid any stink or stench of being seen to be corrupt.

    Kier deserves all the mud that is being thrown at him because this narrative against him was totally avoidable.

13. I feel like I’ve seen more outrage about this than I ever did about the Covid friends and family contracts the conservatives handed out, the worse thing is I bet all this happened under them too.

14. Problem is his team is Arsenal. Any other team (bar Chelsea/Man U/Liverpool/Man City) and it would probably be ok. Arsenal is just too much money tied up in those seats 💺

15. I reckon if we all clubbed in together we could probably bribe Starmer into doing something useful. Apparently the price isn’t insurmountable.

16. Come on people don’t be so harsh on this Starmer character, he’s such an upstanding chap with nothing but good intentions.

17. As a civil servant (won’t say where) I once had to refuse a box of celebrations at Christmas from a contractor I worked very closely with, because it went against our anti-corruption and bribery policy.

    Just wanted to put that out there…..

18. Bots are working overtime on these kier gifts stories nobody real cares.

19. At least Rishi never abused his position of power for personal gain huh /s

20. Genuinely amazing how much this story has been posted over the last couple of days.

21. There are only really two questions everyone needs to ask themselves.

    What do you think the people picking up the tab for this are getting?

    What do they think they’re getting?

22. At least the Tories tried to hide it. Keir doesn’t feel the need to bother given his massive majority.

23. Wait until people learn about the Royal Family and what they get, their heads will explode

24. Ah Socialists…all about equality until they get corrupted by power, then it’s Animal Farm.

    What happened to politics being about service? Did he forget already?

25. Has he submitted it through the proper channels or hidden it away like the tories constantly did ?

26. I think he’s entitled to accept that gift. Why should he refuse to watch his team? The suits from Ali feels a but gruby,  but the Arsenal offer is fine.

27. I’ll give a shit when Kier hands billions of my taxes to his mates.

    Until then the gammonatti can fuck off with their faux outrage.

    PM was offered a spot in the box to watch football matches, who gives a flying fuck.

28. This is hilarious, that’s the worst free gift in the history of free gifts. ‘Kin gooners.

29. It should be illegal for an MP/PM to receive any kind of gift. They are there to do stuff for the people that live here, not the businesses that can give them the most money or items. IMO it makes them a lot less trustworthy than they already are.

30. I voted Labour, I thought the country needed a change. It wasn’t so much that I wholeheartedly believed in Labour, I just believed in them more than any of the others.

    But honestly, if I’d seen this kind of thing before the election, I probably wouldn’t have bothered voting at all.

    He looks weak and his message of change and trust is being eroded by this kind of shit.

    I understand it’s a media frenzy, and they have found something to pin on him, but FFS he needs to come out and state clearly that this gifting bullshit is over.

    Most of us with jobs have some kind of policy regarding gifting, and it’s usually not accepted.

31. I used to teach in an Islamic school in Qatar. It was *absolutely mental* and I have a million stories, but one that’s relevant is this one:

    After being at the school for a month or so, it was my birthday. The millionaire parents of the kids in my Grade 5 class very generously bought me all kinds of lovely expensive cakes and things, which I was very grateful for and couldn’t wait to try. Midway through the morning, a couple of the Arabic-language teachers* and the Arabic Deputy Head came into my class to tell me that “we don’t celebrate birthdays in our culture” and that the cakes would have to be confiscated (luckily, I’d put the first one I was given in the fridge in the staff room).

    I took a different route than usual out of the school because I was getting a ride with someone, and walked past a room where I saw all those guys – and more – eating all of my birthday cakes and having a grand old time doing it.

    I hope you can see why this story might feel relevant right now.

    *our classes were divided with English-speaking teachers doing English, Math and Science, and Arabic-speaking teachers doing Arabic, History, Qur’an Studies, and PE and whatever.

32. Of course someone happy to freeze 4000 pensioners to death is an Arsenal fan.

    Two-Tier Kier and Osama probably sat in the same stand at a few games.

33. I literally don’t care. Why do you ? Your previous Prime Minister (or technically 4 prime ministers ago) was having orgies at the Italian villa of a KGB agent and nobody gave a shit, but Keir Starmer goes to a soccer game and everyone looses their minds.

34. It all makes sense now when we know he supports Arsenal.

35. As someone who always votes Labour… I have lost all respect for this man… He is paid an extortionate amount, so why exactly can he not afford to pay for these luxuries out of his own wage?! 🤨