The Starmers say they moved into Lord Alli’s £18 million penthouse in Soho on 29th May and ceased to use it on 13th July this year. They valued this period of use at a bargain £20,437.28. Starmer said this week:
“I promised him we would move somewhere, get out of the house and go somewhere where he could be peacefully studying”… “if you are putting to me Beth that I should have stayed in my Kentish Town home and disrupted my son’s GCSEs… then I think you should put that to me.”
This suggests Starmer was actively living in the penthouse for the entirety of the period – using it as his primary residence. This would have started just before nominations opened for the General Election on June 4th….
When in 2017 UKIP’s Paul Nuttall claimed on his nomination papers he lived at a house he hadn’t yet moved into, it was made clear that the address had to be the place where he was actually resident at the moment of nomination. Peter Stanyon, deputy chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said: “The general provision will clearly be that it needs to be a factual statement made at the point the nomination was being submitted.” Starmer’s nomination paper claims he was living at an address in Holborn and St. Pancras on that day. But we now know he was at Alli’s penthouse is in the Cities of London and Westminster…
Nuttall was investigated by police. He managed to prove to them that he used his house regularly as a “base” in the campaign for the 2017 Stoke By-Election. Starmer has accidentally admitted that he lived in a different property to the one on his declaration – did he campaign from his Kentish Town house? Downing Street will have to say so…
In addition, Starmer’s stated explanation for his use of the donated penthouse is that he needed the accommodation for his son’s exams. In itself this would mean it is not subject to Labour’s national general election campaign expense. But it would be if he held any campaign meetings there, used the property for campaign purposes or did campaign work there…
It could also shift into the local expense in his capacity as an MP. There is no declaration of the donation during a regulated election period on Starmer’s Electoral Commission entries. Starmer’s period of residence at Lord Alli’s therefore may have breached electoral law. Twice…
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones told the Today Programme it wasn’t ‘appropriate’ to ask whether or not David Lammy was shopping prior to DPMQs instead of trying to sort out the released prisoner:
“He was preparing for Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions. He was preparing to stand in for the Prime Minister, the first ever black person to do so… He cracked a joke because his poppy had fallen off this suit, which he also addressed during the Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions… I don’t think it’s appropriate to get into the weeds of if he was shopping or not in the morning.”
