PM accepted £20,000 so his boy could study

Even before being elected, I remember Starmer speaking about his children, and not wanting to disrupt their lives if at all possible, including protecting them from all that being the PM's chikdren might bring. (Enbarrssment, namely, but I suspect his gaffe has caused them some)

He said that they had tried to say that getting a dog might help them, but he night stretch to a cat.

escaped

Er?
Euan Blair was 15 and doing GCSEs while Blair was PM. Same age as Starmer's boy. I assume the next two Blair siblings down were also that age during his term in office?

I don't care what show size Starmer's son is, but a snippet or two about family interaction shows a bit of normality. Rishi's daughter was 13, we heard about her concerns for the environment in discussions with her father. The rest is private, rightly so.

Perhaps Keir Starmer is hesitant about discussing his family life since he mentioned that, when possible, he finishes work at 6pm on Friday to spend the evening with his family; this innocent remark has been seized on by many on social media as proof that he is lazy and exaggerated into him taking the entire weekend off.

The amount of puerile name calling, misinformation and point scoring against the Labour Party on social media is appalling, I have just deleted my X app because of it; one major offender is Richard Tice. The MSM are also manic in their criticism, they seem to be going through every Labour MP’s declaration of donations with a fine tooth comb. Let’s hope they are as diligent and critical with the findings of the COVID report.

True @NotSpaghetti.

I thought Starmer said Friday evenings were for family time, so we do know how they spend them!!
For me, that was a completely normal piece of information, and I for one didn't criticise it all. Apart from the daft 6pm (?) cut off time.

while Blair was PM

escaped - once living in no. 10 or no. 11 the road is closed these days.

This is not at all the same as living on a "regular" street - even a rather exclusive one.

We are all different, I don’t want to know what tv programmes
they watch or what they eat , you do , we know how they spend
Friday evenings,

* shoe 👞 not show!

Er?
Euan Blair was 15 and doing GCSEs while Blair was PM. Same age as Starmer's boy. I assume the next two Blair siblings down were also that age during his term in office?

I don't care what show size Starmer's son is, but a snippet or two about family interaction shows a bit of normality. Rishi's daughter was 13, we heard about her concerns for the environment in discussions with her father. The rest is private, rightly so.

Do you expect something back when you give to a friend?

What's Lord Dazi getting from all these gifts in return?

The children of the PM’s you speak of were very young, Starmer children are in their teens, should the world know what they eat ?

I wonder whether Keir Starmer is being poorly advised on how he presents these kind of issues to the public? Of course, it is his perogative to keep his family life very private. But, when Blair was PM, for example, he used to talk openly about his "normal" family - how they all watched The Simpsons together, what they cooked for dinner etc. Boris used to tell anecdotes about Wilf, David Cameron said he watched the Xfactor with his kids and went on country walks , Gordon Brown talked about very personal family things like losing his baby daughter and his poorly son.
I'm not suggesting Starmer is wrong to protect his children's privacy, just that the defensive way he went about it in this instance backfired. There is even some question around the GCSE dates he used as being the reason for the flat rental.

The one thing people are criticising Starmer for is his lack of empathy towards pensioners and also towards some school children, and their disrupted education. I just think if we saw a bit more fellow-feeling from him about his normal daily life, he might be accepted better?
Even Theresa May talked about the bins and her preferences in shoes!

Good post anniebach]

OldFrill - best post of the thread so far

MissA - thanks for your cracking comments - you make me smile

Margaret Becket not a true socialist!

Anniebach

Quote paddyann54 Thu 26-Sep-24 18:10:13
I assume the boy has his own bedroom and a set of headphones to keep unwanted noise out…isn,t that how most teens study nowadays.Why should he be treated differently.Isn,t Labour the party of the people? Of course theyaren,t they are tories in red ties nowadays…the clue is the”sir” in front of starters name .NO true socialist would accept an EMPIRE honour

Baron Neil Kinnock, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Baron Harold Wilson, Lord Darling, Baroness Margaret Becket ,Baroness Hardman, Sir Chris Bryant ? sorry but the thought of The Rhondda Valley voting for a Tory in red tie is so daft

😁

Good points!

“They” often have a lot to answer for.

"They" say a lot of things.
"They reported that Rayner was being investigated about the buying of her council flat.
"They whipped people up into almost a frenzy.
Then "they let that drop when investigations found she had done nothing wrong.

I think I've seen "they" are now saying that Starmer was pretending the apartment was his home.
Why, I have no idea.
Perhaps it's true, but it's just as well to be a bit wary of what "they" say.

They’re saying today the flat in question was used from May to July - as others have said GCE exams finish in the middle of May?
And that the amount Starmer declared for its was £20k which would be far too low for a short term lease in this area?

Quote paddyann54 Thu 26-Sep-24 18:10:13
I assume the boy has his own bedroom and a set of headphones to keep unwanted noise out…isn,t that how most teens study nowadays.Why should he be treated differently.Isn,t Labour the party of the people? Of course theyaren,t they are tories in red ties nowadays…the clue is the”sir” in front of starters name .NO true socialist would accept an EMPIRE honour

Baron Neil Kinnock, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Baron Harold Wilson, Lord Darling, Baroness Margaret Becket ,Baroness Hardman, Sir Chris Bryant ? sorry but the thought of The Rhondda Valley voting for a Tory in red tie is so daft

I think removing the WFA was ill-judged and ill-timed.

Other than that I'm really not going to 'slag-off' a politician for doing what he thinks is best for his children / child.

Both Sunak and Starmer as leaders were, and are, protective of their children - with good reason; considering some of the more unbalanced members of society who think nothing of accosting a child - as some, or one at least, did, to one of Rees-Mogg's children, because they disapproved of his father's politics.

I wouldn't consider it a gift if I was either the owner of the flat, or Starmer.
It's a favour, done by a well off friend.

That's by the by, really, because I would imagine that a lot of starmer's friends are well off, considering his job roles even before being pm.

I read somewhere that he moved into someone's flat but didn't pay any rent. I don't think it any money changed hands but it was still an expensive "gift" the flat was in a very high rental area apparently.

I assume the boy has his own bedroom and a set of headphones to keep unwanted noise out…isn,t that how most teens study nowadays.Why should he be treated differently.Isn,t Labour the party of the people? Of course theyaren,t they are tories in red ties nowadays…the clue is the”sir” in front of starters name .NO true socialist would accept an EMPIRE honour .

biglouis

When I was studying for my GCEs I went to the local library because there was no where at home where I could do so in peace. We lived in a two-up-two-down terrace and I shared a room with my sister. Fortunately libraries were open 5 days a week until 9 pm in those dim and distant days.

Clearly there is one rule for the toffs and one for the people. Two Tier has certainly earned his nickname.

Should he have got in a time machine to go back to a time when libraries were open till 9 pm. My local library isn't even open 5 days a week, some days it is closed at 1 pm and some at 5 pm. Not a great deal of time for kids to study after school.

babzi

Totally agree. What about housing where kids have to share bedrooms with younger siblings and/or maybe the whole family share small space. Oh how the other half live....

Kids are starving in Africa, should we stop feeding ours? Why do we have to go to the lowest level to set a target.

There was a press scrum outside his house, there were protestors about the situation in Gaza. Why should the child have to cope with that if there was an alternative?