Swifitie Starmer has sure taken the friendship bracelets, free Taylor Swift tickets, and tasted it – the political freebie perks that is. Because as it turned out, the prime ministers VIP tickets to the music icon’s London show in June were all bought and paid for – all £4,000 worth.
So while Starmer was condemning so-called benefit “handouts”, the supposed Swiftie fan was getting down to Taylor’s sick beat (no one wants to see that) thanks to… a free political handout.
Taylor Swift: Starmer’s free tickets to the Era’s Tour
As the Canary’s James Wright wrote in June:
Despite spending the first year and a half in lockdown as Labour leader, Starmer has managed to rack up more freebies than all other Labour leaders combined, since records began. Starmer accepted donor gifts from multimillionaires, along with gambling, construction, and shopping corporations. In total, they were worth nearly £30,000.
By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn only accepted tickets to Glastonbury 2017 in his five years as Labour leader. He spoke on the Pyramid stage. Ed Miliband, meanwhile, only accepted tickets to the Olympics and Paralympics.
In the immortal words of Taylor Swift herself: “the road not taken looks real good now”.
And, Wright highlighted the staggering hypocrisy of Starmer’s whopping gifts as he railed against benefit claimants for the Telegraph.
In fact, on the 21 of June he was out at his freebie £4,000 ticket Taylor night “campaign pitstop” in Wembley:
‘Swift’ campaign pitstop. pic.twitter.com/VdSo7Pb0i5
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 21, 2024
Then, on the 22 June, he preached to the right-wing outlet that:
handouts from the state do not nurture the same sense of self-reliant dignity as a fair wage.
So, paid political perks: Starmer’s all for it. Social security helping people living on low incomes and in poverty: the prime minister thinks people should just shake it off. Of course, the fact this was all just a day apart makes it all the more galling.
Still bejeweled?
Thankfully, one poster on X posed the question people were all burning to ask:
Hmm. I wonder if he had his glitter on and was wearing bracelets ?!
Keir Starmer received £4,000 Taylor Swift tickets in freebies latest (https://t.co/ZzeEqvzYkH)— The spirit of someone who went before (@StephenC3457) August 19, 2024
On that first part: yes, the prime minister said he was wearing bracelets:
UK Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer reveals he is a Swiftie and traded bracelets at Taylor Swift’s Wembley show.
“I did wear some bracelets. I was bracelet trading as well.”
Starmer is poised to be the next UK Prime Minister, according to polls.
🎥 ITV pic.twitter.com/uzbzKbfPse
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 25, 2024
However, the Canary can confirm, glitter was a no-show. See: a People Demand Democracy protester bedazzling the Labour leader at the party’s annual conference in October 2023. Starmer doesn’t like being bejeweled, as he walks in the room, and he sure as hell doesn’t make the whole place shimmer.
Yet while he doesn’t dig that biodegradable glitz and glam, he has clearly had diamonds in his sights, of the billionaire donor kind.
‘Change’ for ‘the better’?
At Taylor Swift’s penultimate night in London on Monday 19 August, she sung her 2008 hit Change. As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey – a fellow Swiftie – highlighted:
Taylor swift is performing Change right now. During the election campaign prime minister keir starmer said it was his fave TS song.
— Rachel Charlton-Dailey 💖💜💙 (@RachelCDailey) August 19, 2024
Starmer’s favourite Taylor Swift number happens to be named the same as the party’s campaign slogan? Well I never:
At least it’s not quite as bad as when Starmer claimed his favourite Taylor Swift song was “Change” during the election… pic.twitter.com/gSHTgFWJm9
— Dan (@DanT_The_DM) August 16, 2024
Wow, Starmer’s favourite Taylor Swift song just happens to be the song whose title also happens to be the campaign slogan he’s been spewing everywhere.
I don’t care about Starmer’s taste in music but he’s such a transparently disingenuous cunt. https://t.co/FQrBLALvM5
— HutchOnline (@Hutch_Online) June 24, 2024
Here are the lyrics the slimy Taylor Swift-grifter was fangirling over:
And it’s a sad picture, the final blow hits you
Somebody else gets what you wanted again and
You know it’s all the same, another time and place
Repeating history and you’re getting sick of it
But I believe in whatever you do
And I’ll do anything to see it through
Because these things will change
Can you feel it now?
These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down
It’s a revolution, the time will come
For us to finally win
And we’ll sing hallelujah, we’ll sing hallelujah
So we’ve been outnumbered
Raided and now cornered
It’s hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair
We’re getting stronger now
Find things they never found
They might be bigger
But we’re faster and never scared
You can walk away, say we don’t need this
But there’s something in your eyes
Says we can beat this
Because these things will change
Can you feel it now?
These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down
It’s a revolution, the time will come
For us to finally win
And we’ll sing hallelujah, we’ll sing hallelujah
Tonight we’ll stand, get off our knees
Fight for what we’ve worked for all these years
And the battle was long, it’s the fight of our lives
But we’ll stand up champions tonight
It was the night things changed
Can you see it now?
These walls that they put up to hold us back fell down
It’s a revolution, throw your hands up
‘Cause we never gave in
And we’ll sing hallelujah, we sang hallelujah
Hallelujah
In Starmer’s mind, perhaps the song reads like a love letter to a long-awaited Labour win, after a seemingly endless fourteen years of the Tories in power. Only, it’d be a cringey as fuck interpretation. After his corporate stooging and billionaire suck-up election campaign, it’s no “revolution”, and so far things haven’t changed.
That said, the Labour leader is sure keeping true to the title of one Taylor Swift song with the new government’s “death by a thousand cuts” mantra. It has begun this by scrapping the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners. As we pointed out, this will kill – quite literally – thousands this winter. One thing’s for sure, we have a prime minister who’s “so casually cruel” but it’s certainly not “in the name of being honest”.
Feature image via the Canary
