It’s not the freebies I mind, it’s the hypocrisy. For years, Labour MPs screeched about Tory sleaze, some of it real, some imagined. Now, without a blush, they tell us to focus on the big picture instead of the “tittle-tattle” about free clothes and Taylor Swift tickets.
Do they think we have forgotten, or do they genuinely believe it’s different when their side does it? This was deputy PM Angela Rayner three years ago: “Instead of spending more taxpayers’ money on more photographers for the sake of his own vanity, the Prime Minister should prioritise feeding the children who will go hungry in half-term next week and the families facing £1,000 cuts to Universal Credit.” Yet last week it emerged Ms Rayner had decided to hire her own vanity photographer on a salary of £68,000 – paid for by the taxpayer – while, to make the parallel exact, voting to take money from pensioners. Three years ago the deputy PM gnashed her teeth about Boris Johnson ’s Caribbean break: “The public have a right to know who paid for his luxury holiday, how much they paid for it, and what they might expect in return for their generosity.
” At the start of this year she accepted a free stay in a Labour donor’s Manhattan penthouse, in a building with its own gym, jacuzzi and pool. In 2022 Bridget Phillipson fulminated against Boris for “lavishly refurbishing Number 10 with a party donor’s money”. But today, as Education Sec-retary, she says there was nothing wrong with ge.