‘Passes for glasses’: the latest rage-bait from the Right-wing press

Opinion

Conservative-friendly press harp on about Labour non-scandals to their own detriment.

The splash in last Sunday’s Sunday Times was a surprise even though there is a long tradition in Sunday journalism of over-promoting an exclusive, almost any exclusive, in the search for something new to say.

A weak splash by any standard: “No 10 pass for Labour donor who gave £500,000.”

The pass was temporary and was handed back weeks ago. The Labour donor was not just any old Labour donor but Lord Waheed Ali, the television multi-millionaire who has been a Labour peer since 1998.

Even the size of the donation hardly passes muster — £500,000 for goodness sake, compared with, for example the £10m that former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accepted, and held onto, from Frank Hester even after it emerged that this donor had said Labour MP Diane Abbott should be shot.

Not only has Lord Ali already got his peerage but there is no evidence of any kind that he was seeking anything in return and was merely backing the party he has always supported with properly declared funding.

As veteran political commentator Adam Boulton pointed out succinctly, he could see no reason why a Labour peer should not receive a pass to Downing Street.

Lord Ali led Labour’s fundraising campaign and it seems unsurprising that he might have had meetings with Prime Minister Keir Starmer as a result. He might even have given a bit of advice on media policy.

As for the garden party he hosted in Downing Street for Labour donors, it is strange that this should attract criticism from the party, and its newspaper supporters, which held a drinks party there during the Covid lockdown period.

And as for the unusual nature of Lord Ali getting such a pass, as Carol Vorderman observed, the disgraced financier Lex Greensill not only had a pass but also a desk in Downing street for years under David Cameron.

Not only that but the out-of-office Cameron received £10m from Greensill before Greensill Capital collapsed.

Could it have been that Lord Ali’s temporary pass was merely a convenience to avoid the delays caused by the necessary security surrounding 10 Downing Street?

A very weak Sunday Times splash indeed.

Scandal mode

None of the above stopped the indiscriminate deployment of the combined forces of cronyism, sleeze and scandal by all of the usual suspects.

Both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph splashed on the “scandal” while the Daily Express talked of the “passes for glasses row,” with the Mail going one adjective better with “Starmer in ‘Passes For Glasses’ Sleaze Row“.

They were referring to the fact that some of the Lord Ali money had been used to buy Sir Keir a new £2,000 pair of glasses and indeed there was another £20,000 for suits.

While it might have been wiser for the Labour leader to pay for his own glasses, and as many have pointed out, Specsavers could have almost certainly offered Sir Keir a better deal, there is no evidence that any rule was broken either over glasses or suits.

But now the Daily Mail was into full scandal mode with pages of coverage.

“Sleaze rotting our politics to the core” the Daily Mail said while Mail columnist Stephen Pollard bizarrely accused Labour not just of breath-taking hypocrisy but also of turning cronyism into an art form.

Some might think such a description could best be applied to many in the Conservative governments of the past 14 years and on a far grander scale.

By contrast both The Times and The Sun reported the story in a balanced, factual way, minus the artificial outrage.

The Mail was at it again yesterday, on the eve of Sir Keir’s big speech setting out his priorities for the next 10 years.

Pressure was growing on Starmer over “donor’s No 10 pass“ the paper argued amid “the growing suspicion” that the person responsible for authorizing the pass was none other than the demon in Downing Street, chief-of-staff Sue Gray.

The pressure was, of course coming from papers such as the Daily Mail and such political giants as the shadow Paymaster general John Glen, a representative of the party which really mastered the art of cronyism and sleeze.

Naturally Nadine Dorries, who earned £145,000 as an MP despite not speaking in Parliament for a year, could not in her Mail column think of any reason why Lord Ali would need a number 10 pass.

Still searching for a constructive role in ‘opposition’

It is all rather reminiscent of previous Labour “scandals” that lasted for weeks and generated dozens of hostile articles.

There was the great scandal of Sir Keir Starmer’s beer and takeaway curry. Enormous pressure put on the police to investigate. Police time wasted because weeks later no action was taken.

Then there was the scandal of Angela Rayner’s second home. Again a full investigation and no grounds for action were found.

If anything the “case” against Sir Keir and or Sue Gray over the Lord Ali pass is even more flimsy.

It can safely be predicted that even if the Daily Mail manage to huff and puff an inquiry into being  probably unlikely — it will find that no rules have been broken.

There is an important point here. The Right-wing press slavishly supported five Conservative Prime Ministers in a row — and backed the disastrous Brexit to the hilt — despite two of those Prime Ministers being the worst in living memory.

Boris Johnson won the least sought after title because no-one could trust a word he said — ahead of Liz Truss who was merely stupid and incompetent.

Since then there has been a general election and it’s almost as if papers such as the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Daily Express haven’t quite registered the fact that Labour now has a commanding majority. They are still fighting the same old battles as if nothing has changed or will change for at least five years.

They have lost a government — their government — and have yet to find a constructive role in “opposition.”

If they continue on their present course, endless carping against Labour whenever the slightest opportunity arises, they will condemn themselves to increasing irrelevance as their aging readership ages further.