Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
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Hi, this is Podsafe the UK. I'm Nish Kumar.
And I'm Coco Karn. Nish, I can't believe it's happened so soon. We have a new scandal. A new gate.
It's been a while since we've had a new gate. And by a while, I mean probably three months or something. This gate, I think, might be the lowest status gate of them all. What are we calling it? Freebie gate? Dress gate?
Yeah, there's been a few, isn't it? Glasses gate. I've actually come up with my own version, if you want to hear. Threads dread. What? Because it's about clothes, isn't it?
Yeah.
So it's threads.
Threads dreads.
Okay, that's not working. I can see that's not working. Okay, what about this?
You just introduced it as you've come up with a new prefix for date.
I just thought like a new way that we could talk about it. Like, oh, have you heard about the threads dread?
Right, yes. From Starmer.
Okay, what about this? Garms. That's what the kids on the street call clothes.
Yeah.
Starmer's garm drama. Yeah.
I don't mind that.
Don't you think it's got more, you know, theatre than Frockgate or Glassesgate or Freebiegate? Starmer's Garm Drama.
Okay, so for the sake of the listeners that might not be familiar with Starmer's Garm Drama, the basics of it are Keir Starmer has been taking flack in the press this week for making a late declaration of gifts received from Labour's mega-donor, Lord Waheed Ali, who's given over £700,000 to the party... I imagine American listeners will be losing their minds laughing at the trifling amounts of money, at the absolutely zero amounts of money involved in British politics. But yeah, £700,000 makes him a kind of mega donor. Yes. And apart from donations to Labour, Lord Ali has also gifted the Stalmers tailored clothes, glasses for the Prime Minister and a personal shopper for Victoria Stalmer, who's the Prime Minister's wife.
So this isn't the kind of money you or I would be spending on clothes. It is quite a lot of money. According to Starmer's register of interest, he's received £18,625 worth of work clothes and multiple pairs of glasses. Here's Starmer addressing the controversy in this clip from The Telegraph. See if you can catch his message.
So the declarations have gone in in accordance with the rules so that it's transparent and you can all see, according to the rules, exactly what declarations were made. But it was because I insist on the rules that my team reached out to make sure that we were declaring in the right way under the rules and then reached out again to the appropriate authorities, basically asking for advice about what's the appropriate way to deal with this in accordance with the rules. Thank you.
The rules, the rules, the rules, the rules, the rules, the rules, the rules.
Yeah, so the thing that is off about this is that despite this being within the confines of the rules, the rules are a little bit, well, fucked, aren't they?
Yes, and also a story that's broken overnight is that Keir Starmer has actually received more in tickets and gifts than any other recent party leader, a total now topping £100,000. And Starmer told reporters that he is a massive Arsenal fan, but can't go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don't accept a gift of hospitality, I can't go to a game. And you could say, well, bad luck. But he's also arguing that never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far. So we've got this sort of, what are you calling it? Garment drama or whatever it is.
Even if it is within the rules, you know, when Johnson was in power, the opposition were spending a lot of time talking about how it was within the rules for them to fundraise for their decorating their flats or whatever. But it wasn't the spirit of the rules. The spirit of the rules is to try and ensure that people, that politicians don't live excessive lives that are far away from the people and that they are also not being unduly influenced, so to speak. So there's a sense that the spirit of the rules isn't being followed here.
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