Starmer says he will go after the grifters. Maybe look in the mirror?

At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Keir Starmer said:

We will continue to go after… the grifters and the con artists no matter who they are or where we find them

Maybe he should look closer to home. Starmer claimed vast amounts of expenses while he was Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). He spent nearly three times the public money of his successor.

Starmer: grifting

While Labour leader, Starmer has also accepted more freebies than all other Labour leaders since 1997 combined.

As head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008-13, Starmer spent almost a quarter of a million of public money on travel expenses. That includes £161,273 for a chauffeur driven car, despite Starmer living a four-mile direct tube ride from CPS offices. Instead of the tube fare, he spent an average of £1,920 a week for almost two years. And he only stopped because of media reports.

Starmer’s successor as DPP Alison Saunders also served for five years. She spent £67,340 in travel expenses compared to Starmer’s £236,485.

Starmer received £1m in salary and took home £336,000 in publicly funded pension benefits over five years. Still, he found time to claim £7.24 for a taxi in Washington.

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.

Con artist

Starmer also outright conned the Labour membership into voting for him through a series of made up pledges. It was an affront to democracy that the media treats as some kind of cunning political gambit.

In pledge one, Starmer promised to raise income tax on the top 5% of earners. But in September 2023, the MP for Holborn and St Pancras walked that back, stating he would not increase any income tax.

Starmer said in pledge two that he would “support the abolition of tuition fees”. Again, in May 2023, he went back on that promise, suggesting the party was exploring other options.

Tuition fees push debt onto those who want to learn the skills they need to succeed and enrich their life and society.

Democracy must mean little to Starmer. In pledge three, he promised that he “put the Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do”.

And yet again, in February 2024, the Labour leader dropped a £28bn per year commitment to green energy. Apparently averting climate catastrophe and delivering cheaper bills isn’t a priority.

Wait, how much con artistry?

The lies continue. For pledge four, Starmer stated “no more illegal wars… put human rights at the heart of foreign policy. Review all UK arms sales and make us a force for international peace and justice”.

But the Starmer government continues to sell arms to Israel, violating international and domestic law because of the countless war crimes the Middle Eastern country is committing.

In pledge five, Starmer claimed that “public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water.”

But in similar form, he has dropped plans to nationalise energy, mail and water. On rail, even the Tories are admitting that privatisation doesn’t work, bringing a number of services into state ownership. And Starmer’s so-called nationalisation of rail doesn’t even include the trains themselves, which we still rent from ‘rolling stock’ companies.

Under pledge six, Starmer vowed to “defend free movement as we leave the EU”. But in November 2022, he reversed his position. He branded free movement a “red-line” that “won’t come back under my government”.

Onto pledge seven, Starmer committed to working “shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people”. But then he demanded that his shadow cabinet do not join picket lines.

In any functioning democracy, there should be repercussions for politicians grifting their way to power through outright lies. Yet Starmer did so freely and now has the brass neck to go on about “con artists” in parliament.

Featured image via the House of Commons