Labour’s landslide promising “change” was less than three months ago, and the party goes into its first conference needing to show it has begun.
Meeting in celebratory mood, as a party in government for the first time in 14 years, the message will be that the things they’ve talked about can start to be put into action.
Ministers now acknowledge that the past few days have seen constant distraction, whether about free clothes, gifted football hospitality and how Downing Street itself is operating.
Criticism of Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to take £16,000 of clothes from a Labour donor, and donations for his wife’s wardrobe, has been raging in the newspapers.
After digging in for days to defend it, the leader’s team bowed to pressure, announcing that neither the prime minister, nor his deputy Angela Rayner or chancellor Rachel Reeves – both also revealed to have taken donations for clothes – will do so in future.
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Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, told Sky News “we certainly don’t want the news and the commentary to be dominated by conversations about clothes, when we have a really positive agenda for this country”.
Donations are “always difficult issues in British politics”, she said, given political leaders cannot charge the taxpayer for these items.
But as a voter in Liverpool told us today, “[Starmer] was always quick to slate the Tories over sleaze”.
Others praised him for being honest about it, but all had heard of the row.
One reason why this matters emerges in a new…
