Honestly Kaz, I am not really that fussed about any of it per se. Clearly, many Tories have done the same or worse, so what's the big deal? Why am I so concerned about it?
For me it's not the gifts themselves, it's what does all of this tell us?
First, I do question why someone who is supposedly a socialist, who was on £150k per year as leader of the opposition, and more now, a multi-millionaire who earned a fortune as the DPP, would think it remotely appropriate to be accepting free clothes, glasses, tickets for himself and his wife and accommodation. I find it staggering that anyone who purports to be a socialist would think this is OK. Truly incredible. Someone who thinks it's OK to take £300 off pensioners, thinks it's OK to take £100,000 for yourself in gifts? Bizarre anyone could think like that. And even more bizarre they would not care how it might look.
Second, there's the rank hypocrisy of slagging off the Tories for years about this kind of thing, whilst doing the very same yourself. What sort of person does that??? Can you imagine doing that? I cannot. I find truly baffling. If was doing something dodgy, the very last thing i would do is publicly slag off others for doing the same, since I would logically think "If it comes out that I've been doing this, I will get slaughtered for it, so I had better not". Why did he not think that and refuse the gifts, as Rebecca Long-Bailley rightly has said he should have done.
So the question has to be asked, is he really, really politically naive, stupid even? Or is it because he genuinely thinks he is above everyone else and we can all sod off and he doesn't care what others think? Neither of these possibilities is good! But I cannot believe he is thick, nor politically incompetent, so the only logical conclusion is that he thinks he is above everyone else and he can do what he likes with impunity. It's Trump-like behaviour.
Which is why I - and most of the rest of the population - have concluded he's a wrong un, a fraud. He says what he thinks people want to hear, but underneath it all, he's a money grabbing slimeball in it for himself and sod the rest of us.
