There are very few British Prime Ministers who have come out unscathed from the daily grilling that goes on in the British press. And this time it raises a question that has vexed many over the centuries: “Do clothes maketh the man”? Or woman, as the case may be. And should a Prime Minister and his wife be always well dressed? If the answer is “yes”, then what can be wrong if someone offers to buy fancy clothes for you? Surely if you are the Prime Minister, you should have better things to worry about than what you will wear for the Cabinet meeting or the UN get-together.
.. And then, the Prime Minister’s wife is always under scrutiny over what she wears.
In fact, the press even publishes the brand she is wearing along with the price tag. (I have always wondered about how quickly the media know it all — but then undoubtedly the dress designers also have a PR firm which will quickly leak the information to the press.) But Sir Keir Starmer made the mistake of allowing clothes worth thousands of pounds to be gifted to him by a supporter — and the subsequent hammering by the right-wing press means that he (despite having won a handsome victory) is now very, very unpopular —and 26 per cent voters dislike him more than those who like him.
The alleged error is that Sir Keir was given clothes to wear worth thousands of pounds plus spectacles costing more than two thousand pounds by a rich member of the Labour Party, Lord Ali. MPs are supposed to declare gifts received .