Lord Alli has been accused of letting Sir Keir Starmer’s allies stay at another luxurious London property as the Labour peer’s damning comments about the MPs’ expenses scandal resurface.
Alli, 59, who gave the Prime Minister £32,000 to pay for clothing, criticised MPs over the 2009 scandal.
Speaking to The Financial Times in 2011, the Labour peer suggested people who were involved in the riots that swept across the UK that year felt able to steal from shops because they believed politicians were “on the take”.
He said: “When you’re at the bottom of the heap and you see people can bankrupt your economy and still take huge bonuses, when MPs can help themselves to expenses which they think they’re entitled to but are probably not right.”
Keir Starmer has been embroiled in a donorgate scandal involving Lord Alli
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Alli, who gave Starmer access to his £4million Soho townhouse, also invited senior aides and MPs to visit the property for meetings ahead of the 2024 General Election.
Starmer’s Chief of Staff Sue Gray reportedly held separate meetings at the property, The Times has claimed.
The total number of properties owned by Alli that were used by Labour MPs now stands at three, with the Prime Minister using his £18m Covent Garden penthouse for his son’s studies and Angela Rayner spending time at his £2m Manhattan apartment on holiday.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Lord Alli but the row over his gifts has damaged the Government’s popularity and overshadowed Labour’s annual party conference in Liverpool earlier this week.
Keir Starmer used Lord Alli’s Covent Garden apartment to film a video
PA
Starmer has refused to apologise for the donor scandal hitting Labour.
He said: “I’m not going to apologise for not doing anything wrong.”
Despite ruling out accepting further freebies for clothing, Starmer left the door open on receiving gifts for access to events.
Asked whether he would rule out accepting such gifts in the future, he told ITV: “I think that’s a matter of judgment. There has to be good reason.”
Rosie Duffield has repeatedly clashed with the Labour leadership as a result of her trans stancePAHowever, the Prime Minister suffered a major blow yesterday after Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield resigned the Labour whip with “immediate effect”.
She said: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”
Duffield added: “Since the change of Government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous.
“I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.
“How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?”
GB News has approached Labour and No10 for comment.