The Duran Podcast - Keir Starmer freebies scandal

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Keir Starmer freebies scandal

All right. I am here with Alexander Mercutis and we are going to talk about the UK and Stommer. Now, there's a scandal. There's a lot of scandals that are going on with the UK government. For me, the big scandal. I don't know if it's a scandal, but what I talk about when it comes to the UK is the push to escalate with Russia and to get approval of long range weapons, stormshadow missiles into Russian territory. But in the UK right now, there is a real scandal that is happening with the Stommer government, not foreign policy, but domestic. And that has to do with – and I'm not even sure I understand what's going on, but that has to do with the fact that Stommer was taking money. This is the allegation. Maybe I'm wrong about this. They were using money, budget funds budgeted to the government to buy –

Close? I could be wrong about this. YouTube. I am asking someone who does know what's going on. So if I'm wrong about my reporting, don't nuke this video anyway. Alexander, what is going on here? I will explain this scandal in a moment. Can I just make a general observation?

We were saying before the election, we were saying over many months before the election, that this is not going to be a successful government, that Stama would be more of the same. the same. He would be continuing where the Conservatives left off on every conceivable issue, Ukraine, the economy, whatever. The British people, as we saw in the election, far from enthusiastic about Stama or the Labour Party, they won the election with a huge landslide, but in terms of the actual vote they achieved, they didn't do well at all. Now, I have been following British politics closely since the early 1970s. The first incoming government I remember was Edward Heath's in 1970, which takes you back a long way. I have never known a British government

lose support as fast as this government has done. I've never seen a newly elected Prime Minister, Prime Minister who's just been elected, lose support as fast as Stama has. And if we come to the question of Ukraine first, I think this is a central aspect of this, because we talk about, you know, we make jokes about the Olensky curse, but it is important. It's real. It is not only is it absolutely real, but this is the only policy at the moment, the only distinctive policy that the Stamber administration has so far shown. I mean, they are absolutely committed 100% to Ukraine, to Zelensky himself. Stama invited him to attend a British cabinet meeting.

He is advocating deep missile strikes against Russia. He's doing all of these things. There's not much media or political pushback against this, But amongst the British people, this is not, in my opinion, popular at all. The British people want their government to deal with their domestic problems. Now, let's come to that. Let's first of all deal with the scandal. What Stama has done is, as soon as he became elected,

he started to take either direct money, as I understand it. There was some money provided, but also gifts of expensive clothes. suits, spectacles, all kinds of things of this guy from wealthy donors. In particular, one in particular who's Lord Ali, an immensely rich media tycoon in Britain, he's worth around 200 million pounds. So that gives you an idea. We're talking about lots of money. And basically he's been funding the way in which Stama appears.

So Stama is, you know... This is confirmed. This is confirmed. This is absolutely. It's not even disputed. I mean, start with himself amidst it. It turns out that other top members of the government were getting money like, we're getting similar gifts as well.

They're all turning out with clothes, the deputy leader Angela Rainer, the chancellor, finance minister Rachel Reeves. They're also all being dressed in effect through, you know, money provided, all the gifts provided. This is confirmed. This is absolutely confirmed, not just by, you know, Lord Ali, I believe others as well. And of course, to say that it's a terrible look,

it's absolutely the case. Even the pro-Starmer Guardian has been running pieces about this, saying this is absolutely, the optics of this are terrible. But of course, it builds on an already terrible economic situation, which the Starma government is made. making worse. Now, in the weeks before the election, and in the weeks that immediately followed,

you had a mild uptick in the state of the British economy. I never took it very seriously myself, but, you know, what happened was the Conservatives probably reflated the economy to some extent because they wanted to improve the economic numbers just before the election took place, and we had a sort of mild uptick. Stama comes in and together, with his chancellor, takes away energy subsidies from pensioners, talks about the fact that taxes are going to have to rise, cuts spending on all kinds of programs, gives big wage payments to public sector workers who, through their unions, are an important part of the Labor Party, the current Labour Party.

Anyway, he talks about austerity. He gives the British people the impression that things are going to get worse. In fact, he made, and what I thought was a disastrous speech saying precisely that, but for the moment, things can only get worse. And at the same time, as he's doing that, he's getting all these fancy clothes

from people like Lord Arley. So the optics could not be worth. It is unbelievable, exactly. And as I said, his popularity has crashed, as has that if he's government. Now, he has no other policies, apart from giving arms and support to Zelensky, which, as I said, is not particularly popular with the British people at this time. And people are asking, increasingly, what is the plan? You accept that there's all these economic problems in Britain. Other than raise our taxes and cut spending on social programs and on infrastructure,

you know, building roads, clearing the streets, sorting out pavements, doing all of these things. If you spend any time in Britain now, you will notice how grubby and dirty a lot of Britain is now becoming, because there's been so little done about this. So other than doing all of that, what exactly do you intend to do? What is your strategy for making the economic situation in the medium term in Britain better? He hasn't come up with one.

He's got a bit closer to the European Union where things are even worse than they are in Britain, if that is born. He gives a lot of people the impression that he wants to take Britain eventually back into the European Union, which I'm sure he does, but he's not had the courage to say that outright. So people are asking, William, what are you about at the end of the day? You've crashed the economy. I was speaking to a businessman just a few days ago, and he is based in Bristol outside London, between. he runs a print and paper business,

and he tells me that orders have fallen off a cliff. I mean, all the indications are that the country is going back into a deep recession. There's no plan other than to send arms to Ukraine and get us perhaps involved into a crisis with the Russians. and at the same time the Prime Minister goes to his friends, his friend, his rich friends, gets clothes from them, gets tickets to football matches. Is it just for him or is it also for family members?

Absolutely, his wife. His wife also was also being dressed in this way, you know, beautifully turned out and all of that. So he's getting all of that from his friends. He's going to Taylor Swift concerts. He's getting tickets to Taylor Swift concerts, to Taylor Swift. Interesting.

It's revealing as well. But he's getting all of that. And as I said, to say that people are not impressed, in fact that they're very disappointed, in fact that they are very angry would be an understatement. But just to say this, Alex, if people had been listening to our press, programs about Britain and the situation here, none of this should surprise anybody because

we've been warning, well, ever since basically Stalin became leader of the Labour Party, that if he was ever elected, this is the sort of thing that we would get. Okay, two questions. The first one I think is obvious. Wasn't there anyone in his cabinet, in his administration, saying this is not a good idea? In labor, in the labor party, a huge party. Wasn't there anyone saying, yeah, this is not such a good idea. Perhaps we should tell this guy that's giving you these gifts to all of us.

Stommer, everybody that's getting these gifts, no thank you. That's my first question and my second question. How is, to be fair to Stommer, how is he explaining this? Is there an explanation for this? Is he explaining this? Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe the media in the UK, even the Guardian, maybe they're getting it wrong. I don't know.

How is he explaining all of this? The first thing to say is they're not getting it wrong. It is exactly as I said. But let's deal with the first question about, you know, what wasn't he? Wasn't he warned? Wasn't he given the advice? The thing to understand that the other aspect of this is that already there is massive infighting going on within Starmer's team.

His chief of staff and his campaign manager hate each other. His chief of staff was a person called Sue Gray, former top civil servant who did a report on Boris Johnson and the Conservatives

over Party Gate. Right, I remember her. Anyway, she's now Starmes chief of staff, by the way, which is already people are uneasy about that because she was a former civil servant. She's now become a political figure. Well, she's deeply unpopular.

The civil service don't like her. The first thing she did was that she negotiated for herself a huge pay increase. So this has created. She's actually paid more than Starming and Selfism. So this has already already made that unpopular. I'm popular with many people. She doesn't get on at all well with the campaign manager. There's feuding and lots of negative briefing by each against the other going on.

The media in Britain is full of all of this. So I think they have been far more interested and absorbed with fighting these internal problems than they are in thinking about, you know, the wider issues and the optics, making mistakes which Tony Blair, for example, I mean, I'm not a fan of telling him, but he would never have made mistakes as obvious as these of having, you know, rich people buy his clothes. Now, so he, Starman runs a bad team. And that's the first thing, a bad and very divided team. He's also become very accustomed to the fact that the media supports him, as they did before the election.

because, as we discussed many times, the establishment very much wanted him to win. So he's not used to criticism. Now, his reaction when all this came out was, you know, he's the prime minister written. He must appear in elegant clothes. He must, you know, the president of the United States gets funding from the US government budget to be. properly dressed. He's got to look presentable

himself. And since he only gets paid $176,000 a year, he can't afford to buy expensive clothes. It doesn't mention the fact, by the way, that he was previously a lawyer.

So presumably he's a wealthy man anyway. But, you know, he can't afford to dress himself up. was for the median income in Britain is 32,000 pounds a year. So, you know, he may be, you know, it's not a millionaire salary, but he's paid an awful lot more than most people are. But anyway, that was what he was saying.

And that was his justification, how he justifies the fact that his wife was paid expensive clothes. I'm not quite sure. But anyway, that was his defence. And the most extraordinary thing was that he ran with it. He went on saying for several days, even after this story came out, that he wasn't doing anything wrong. He hadn't broken any rules.

He would just go on doing it. He would go on accepting these gifts and still go on, presumably going to football matches and to Taylor Swift concerts and doing all of those things. I mean, it was fine. He didn't seem embarrassed. about it only when it became absolutely clear that Labour MPs were starting to complain, other Labour ministers were starting to complain, there are problems now with the Labour Party conference which is taking place, only then did he start to realise that this was, the

optics were terrible and he finally came round and said that he would no longer continue to accept these gifts. Is he giving them back? No. I haven't heard that he is. I'm speechless. I mean, really, I'm speechless. This is, I don't know what to say. I really don't know what to say.

This is, a 10-year-old would know that this is not a good idea to accept these gifts. If you're the prime minister of the UK. This is as basic as you can get. And on the flip side, he's pushing for war with Russia while he is sending whatever little money and weapons are left to Tzoletsky. Yes. I mean, the optics of this are about as bad as you can possibly get. Absolutely. And, of course, he's telling everybody that the economic situation is going to get worse,

that he's going to raise people's taxes and cut the investment and do all of these things. and it's presiding over what looks like a oncoming recession. And, of course, at the same time, he's getting expensive spectacles and gifts to Taylor Swift conference, concerts, and having himself kitted out in expensive clothes and his wife getting expensive dresses and doing all of these things. Now, the optics just could not be worse. So what happens now? I mean... He goes on for a while. He goes on.

He goes on for a while because he's just won an election. But he's support for him. He's draining, draining away. I mean, there's been, I mean, it's crashed. I mean, he's now in deep negative territory. I don't think he's going to be prime minister for very long. That's my own. Do you see another crackdown on speech?

Yes. Like what he did a couple of months ago? Yes. Yes. There's already lots of talk about this, you know, all sorts of stories about. bad things have been spread. The Russians are busy with disinformation. All of that's going to continue.

Whoever he stays or goes, this government, this labor government, will pursue that agenda until they're voted out, which they probably will be, by the way. Do you think the constant talk about the escalation with Russia is a distraction from this scandal?

No, it began before. I think it's one thing that, Just the one thing that the entire British establishment is united around. And it gives the political system a degree of coherence that nothing else does. I mean, it gives them a policy. It unifies them. It unifies them. But of course, it unifies the political elite, but it doesn't unify the country.

The country is sick of Ukraine. Wow. I still can't believe this story. I really cannot believe this story. It's quite embarrassing, actually, that this is what he's doing. And I thought he's, I thought he was, before he became prime minister, I mean, he's sir, Sir, Kirstom, I thought he was a man of, of, of, of, he's distinguished, he's proper. I mean, that's the impression that they like to present the stahar,

someone who understands etiquette and stuff like that. I mean, he's Sir, Kier Stomer. This doesn't seem to be the actions of a sir. Well, that's exactly correct. I would say this. I mean, the other damage this has done is it's actually just smashed the only positive side of his image. people didn't particularly like him before the election. He came across as boring, he came across as uninteresting,

lacking in ideas, a rather grey figure. But people did think he was, you know, solid and honest and dignified. I think people have been rather shocked and disappointed to discover that he isn't those things. I mean, the only positives that he had, the upside were those and he hasn't delivered on them. So people are asking, well, if he's, if he's so mediocre as prime minister,

if he's leading our country into a recession, if he's pulling us into a crisis with the Russians, and he isn't even someone who has that level of dignity and respectability that we expected of him, what is the point of him? How people are asking that question? I thought the same thing. I said this guy's so boring that at least on the upside, he's so boring that at least he won't

do anything stupid. Yes. What was I wrong? Exactly. If you look, the comparison was with Theresa May. I mean, Theresa May was a terrible prime minister, as we remember, completely lacking charisma or anything of that kind. she was in her personally a frugal person and gave the impression of being

respectable and honest and people did like that that was the one aspect of her that people you know respected that was something that Starma also appeared to show and appears to have and of course he's taken just a few weeks to trash that impression completely how was this leaked how did this this come out? Oh, it wasn't... I mean... A final... How do people find out about this? It wasn't really

concealed. That's the other extraordinary thing about this. So, originally, you're supposed to, if you're a political leader, to disclose donations, it turned out that they weren't following

some of them, I'm not sure about Stama himself, but that they weren't following the disclosure rules properly. But eventually, journalists just look. at the declarations of interest that they were getting, and they began to see all of these. The total amount, by the way, just to say,

the value of the gifts that he's received is 100,000 pounds. More, more in terms of, you know, these kind of gifts than all prime ministers going all the way back to the election of Tony Blair in 1997. More than all of those, these Labor prime ministers, taken together have received more than Blair received more than Brown received I think you'll find more than the Tory prime ministers over that period received as well though about Boris I'm not

absolutely sure well a hundred thousand pounds buys a lot of clothes a lot of good clothes that's one side of the of the argument but on the flip side it's you you destroy your reputation you just a hundred thousand I mean it's a lot of money but you can can also make the argument for a hundred thousand pounds man you destroy your whole reputation well well here absolutely that is completely completely true and can i just say i mean i live in london um i i know how to dress well there are plenty of people in london who know how to dress well particularly if you're a man i mean this is you know it's a world capital it's london yeah you know taylor you can you can get yourself clothes

You can get yourself very good suits, which you don't need to spend $100,000 on, not remotely. You can get really excellent suits for less than a thousand pounds, a lot less than a thousand pounds. So suits which any prime minister could wear to any meeting, you know, internationally. And it would not raise eyebrows,

people wouldn't snigger behind your back and say, so-and-so doesn't look absolutely immaculate. It's just not worth it. If you're prime minister, you would say it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Exactly. Exactly. That would just be the logical conclusion. He could have been

perfectly turned out for a fraction of the amount that he's received. And as I said, those are he's spectacles, all these large numbers of spectacles he's received. I mean, I just don't even understand what that's about, thank you. You know, you do it.

like just a final note, you play it the way Tony Blair played it or Obama. The way Obama played it or all the U.S. politicians while you're in office, or at least back in the day, the U.S. politicians, I'm not so sure that holds now. But, you know, you're your president or your prime minister while you're in office, you don't make stupid mistakes like this one. Then when you're done, that's when you make the real big bucks like Tony Blair or like Obama and you sit on the board of companies and you create foundations. Yes.

Why do it while you're in office? Well, agreed. Agreed. But he was obviously in too much of a hurry. He probably doesn't really believe that he'll be there very long. So he's going to enjoy it while it lasts and seems. Oh, boy. Anyway, all right, that's the video.

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