Labour lap up the luxury gifts as country faces winter of austerity - Angus Robertson

Pictured above, left to right, are Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool on Sunday. Picture: Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Not only have they sold-out older people by cancelling winter fuel allowances and breaking their promise of lower heating costs, they have been exposed for the receipt of industrial-scale gifting.

Labour leaders have accepted massive donations towards clothing, entertaining and even dodgy financial support via tax havens, repeating the worst habits of the discredited Tories.

These luxuries are what the Keir Starmer UK Labour cabinet is enjoying as perks in the lead-up to and after their election to government. In total, the Telegraph newspaper analysis of the MPs register of interests shows Labour cabinet ministers have taken £753,017 in donations and £90,853 in gifts since the beginning of the year.

Keir Starmer, his chief of staff Sue Gray and Foreign Secretary David Lammy enjoyed a corporate box at Tottenham Hotspur, with lobbyists present. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has taken £104,000 in gifts and donations since the start of the year, including a free holiday at a $2.5 million apartment in Manhattan paid for by Lord Alli, and £2230 for clothing from luxury brand ME+EM.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves admitted she took cash for designer clothes too, including £7500 since 2023 from Juliet Rosenfeld, the widow of a Labour donor caught up in the 2006 cash for honours scandal. Reeves said Rosenfeld was an “old friend” who wanted her to “look smart”.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has taken more than £150,000 of donations and gifts including a £10,000 donation from a Saudi-supporting PR executive and £2500 worth of tickets to see Tottenham Hotspur.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting received £117,000 in donations and gifts, including Taylor Swift tickets at Wembley costing £1160.

Senior cabinet minister Pat McFadden took gifts including tickets to see Bruce Springsteen, while Environment Secretary Steve Reed took gifts including Kylie tickets. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson admits she accepted £14,000 in donations from Lord Alli to pay for an event for “lobby journalists” and an event ahead of her 40th birthday. She was another who grabbed the much sought-after Taylor Swift tickets.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party has just reported its largest-ever donation, which came from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund with shares worth hundreds of millions of pounds in fossil fuels, private health firms, arms manufacturers and asset managers.

The £4m donation by Quadrature Capital received the donation in the one-week window between former prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing the general election and the start of the “pre-poll reporting period” meaning it was only reported more than two months after Labour won the election

While all of this has been going on, Labour has been planning and now executing an austerity programme for the country. As we head into winter and higher fuel bills, the Labour government has yanked financial aid away from the vast majority of pensioners in the country. Rightly, the public is not happy.

Indeed, a poll by Survation found a majority (51 per cent) of Scots oppose Labour’s cuts to winter fuel payments, and almost half of Labour voters in Scotland (44 per cent) think Keir Starmer’s government has “failed to meet expectations”. A majority of Scots (56 per cent) do not think the Labour government is “acting in the best interests of Scotland” – while just 15 per cent do.

Angus Robertson is the SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central and Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary