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Angela Rayner has insisted she gave “nothing” to Lord Waheed Alli in return for the wealthy Labour peer’s generous donations, including a five-day stay in a Manhattan apartment and thousands of pounds of free clothing.
The UK deputy prime minister told the BBC as Labour’s annual conference kicked off on Sunday that politicians from all parties had accepted gifts “for years” and that “all MPs do it”.
“I promised nothing and gave him nothing in return,” she said of Alli’s donations.
The media tycoon has been at the centre of a furore that has overshadowed the run-up to Labour’s first conference as a party of government in 15 years.
Alli has given thousands of pounds of gifts including free clothing to seven sitting cabinet ministers including Rayner and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Starmer initially failed to declare clothing gifts from Alli worth £16,200 to the prime minister personally and £5,000 to his wife.
Rayner said she understood that the general public was “angry and upset” and said that the rules had to apply to everyone in politics. “If there is a national debate about how to fund politics . . . let’s do that.”
Both Rayner and chancellor Rachel Reeves declared gifts of thousands of pounds of clothing from donors in parliament’s register of interests as generic support for their political work, the Financial Times revealed.
On Friday, Labour officials finally admitted that a £3,550 donation from Alli to Rayner in June consisted of work clothing.
They also confirmed that three other donations worth £17,650 from Alli had been spent at least in part on clothes.
In an attempt to shut down the scandal, the party pledged on Friday that Starmer, Reeves and Rayner would not take any free clothing in future.
The Sunday Times today raised fresh questions, reporting that Rayner registered a five-day stay at Alli’s luxury Manhattan apartment for the new year but did not lodge the fact that her friend Sam Tarry stayed with her.
She said on Sunday that this did not break the rules. Her team said the presence of Tarry — who was a Labour MP at the time — did not need to be reported because Alli did not know he was there.
Asked why she stayed in the flat for free, she told the BBC: “As friends do, a friend allowed me to stay . . . people do stay at other people’s apartments.”
On Sunday morning Rayner, who is also housing secretary, will promise a package of measures to ensure “decent homes for all” when she addresses the Labour conference in Liverpool.