How to make a crisis out of a drama! The breathtaking and seemingly never- ending ineptitude of the way the government has handled the “Free Gear Keir” scandal leaves you wondering if Gerald Ratner* is in charge of communications at Number 10. Or the “drip, drip,drip” of stories could suggest it was being handled by Thames Water, or United Utilities, Yorkshire or Wessex Water – or just about every last one of them. If you adhere to the line echoed by most political communications managers, the damage – sometimes irreparable – is done if a story is allowed to run for ten days.
If that’s so, this row is to the new government what the iceberg was to the Titanic. Ask yourself the following. Why would a respected barrister with supposedly forensic style skills not see the danger of taking tens of thousands of pounds worth of freebies ranging from tickets to football and concerts to suits and spectacles? (By the way, if that pair really did cost around £2,500, he was robbed!).
Having been exposed, Sir Keir Starmer told me after his speech at the Labour conference, “I’ve done nothing wrong.” Really? If so, why have you announced you will stop doing it? And, even more puzzlingly, why have you decided to pay back the costs of some of the gifts, again, if you’ve not done anything wrong? Even the way he announced he was to foot the bill for some of the donations was appallingly mishandled. Firstly, he’s ready to write a cheque for £6,000, but around £40,000 .