The big political story in Britain at the moment is the Labour Prime Minister accepting free clothes on behalf of his wife from a benefactor – an act that the cruel – and cruelly funny it must be said – have thought worthy of ridicule.
But would you know it! A hundred years ago (where I live) the big story is also the Labour Prime Minister accepting free stuff from a benefactor. In James Ramsay MacDonald’s case the free stuff is a car (a Daimler no less) and the means to maintain it. At this point things take a turn for the better for Keir Starmer’s predecessor. The benefactor, a Sir Alexander Grant happens to be an old friend of MacDonald’s and also happens to be a biscuit millionaire. Sir Alexander claims that he was moved to his act of unbidden generosity when he heard that MacDonald was travelling around London by Underground Railway which he felt was tiring him out and undermining his efficiency. I suppose the equivalent today would be if his modern-day counterpart had discovered that Sir Keir and Lady Starmer were wandering about in garments made of sack cloth.
By the way, I am not sure what travelling around on the London Underground says about Ramsay MacDonald but I can’t help feeling that it says a lot about the society of the time.
Hello Jim, got a new motor?
The moral of the story is that anyone can be bought with the correct currency. People who consider themselves to be ‘moral’ won’t accept ‘money’ but can still be bought with gifts, kindness, patronage, or donations to charities they favour.
It is hypocritical for politicians to extol morality but reap the rewards of their position – but it has been this way for centuries. Only the nature of the gifts has changed.
Yes, but if a common or garden taxpayer had tried to get their job related clothing expenses paid for by other means (paid by company or fans even), then HMRC would be all over them like a rash.
We don’t expect much from our politicians, worthless scum that they are, but we do expect that the law (including tax statutes) are applied equally.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6313173/It-wasnt-chauffeur-driven-luxury-battlebuses-football-folk-went-work.html
I have always liked the 1964 photo of Ron Greeneood taking the FA Cup home on the tube. Not a good idea nowadays.
Starmer’s diminishing fan base on twitter defending him over this are amusing. The way they are presenting it you’d think Starmer was earning starvation wages and could barely keep a roof over his head.
Prime Minister MacDonald also used busses.
As for the present Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, – he is very well paid, he has no need to accept gifts.
Neither did Prime Minister Johnson.
I do not know why well paid Prime Ministers keep accepting gifts from people who want policy favours – their petty greed seems rather odd.
It is also a bit daft for the gift-givers – as British Prime Ministers have only limited powers and can only provide them small favours rather than big ones.
Perhaps the whole thing is a bit of a ritual….
Someone schemes and plots to become Prime Minister – then they find they are basically a puppet of the officials and “experts”, so the whole process (the years, indeed decades, of plotting and backstabbing) has been a bit of a waste of time.
So they take gifts as a sort of consolation prize for not having real power.
“I may not be able to do XYZ – but look at this expensive watch I got! And the fancy coat!”
John – yes, it would be very cruel to take someone from the London of 1964 and take them (via Time Machine or whatever) to the place London has become.
“… it would be very cruel to take someone from the London of 1964 and take them (via Time Machine or whatever) to the place London has become…”
Round about exactly then, as a ten-year-old boy, I used to travel up to London from the eastern suburbs, via Liverpool Street and the Circle Line, to attend Prom concerts at the Albert Hall – accompanied only by my mother. Including that long tunnel then (and perhaps now) known as “The Drain” from South Ken station to somewhere near the hall – I forget the exact details, it was sixty years ago after all.
We thought nothing of it then; it would be utterly unthinkable in today’s London.
I find it hard to work myself into a rage about some person giving lots of goodies to Sir Keir and his wife. Life is too short, in my view, to get bent out of shape about this. What I suppose gives this story its edge is how sanctimonious a figure KS has been while leader of the Opposition, such as during the lockdowns, and in attacking Boris Johnson over the real or alleged failings during that period.
A wider problem is that Labour donors have been accused of buying access to ministers. In the first year or so of this government, with its big majority of MPs, it is inevitable that people will do what they can to get access and influence.
With Big Government, politicians who enable and protect it are open to petty and larger acts of venality. It was P J O’Rourke who said, to paraphrase, that when legislators control the price of what gets bought and sold, the first to be bought and sold will be legislators.
Peter MacFarlane – sadly so.
Johnathan Pearce.
I repeat that one ironic aspect of this is how little the people paying the bribes (the dresses for the wife, the fancy watch for the minister of Prime Minister…..) will get in return for their bribes.
Ministers and the Prime Minister are largely (largely – NOT totally) puppets (of the officials and “experts”) anyway – they have little power to give real big favours to the people bribing them.
Still even little favours may be worth more than the cost of the bribes Sir Keir Starmer and the rest are accepting – so the commercial calculation of the people bribing them, may be sound.