Steerpike

Dear oh dear. Things are only getting worse for Sir Keir, as it now transpires that the Prime Minister accepted £40,000 in hospitality gifts, a £4 million donation from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund, and regular use of an £18 million penthouse owned by top donor Lord Alli. Alright for some, eh? It's been a rough week for the PM as 'frockgate' continues to rumble on, and the scrutiny on Starmer's acceptance of some rather extravagant donations is only growing. As reported by the Telegraph, not only did the Labour leader accept clothing and glasses from Lord Alli, he also used Alli's 5,000 square foot home on election night, as well as for strategy meetings and fundraisers.

To Westminster, where more trouble is afoot. It now transpires the Prime Minister is paid less than, er, his own chief of staff. Sue Gray has once again made headlines after the Beeb revealed the former top civil servant has been given a salary of a whopping £170,000 – which is £3,000 more than the man in the top job. How curious... Gray's wage – higher than that of her Conservative predecessor Lord Booth-Smith, who earned between £140,000 and £145,000 a year – has sparked an uncomfortable row in government, with frustration amongst other advisers who believe they are being underpaid.

Back to the Foreign Secretary, who seems unable to keep himself out of the headlines these days. It transpires that as well as being rather gaffe-prone on the subject of international relations – having described Donald Trump in the past as a 'neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath' – David Lammy has today taken it upon himself to wax lyrical about the dangers of the climate crisis. In fact, the Foreign Secretary even appeared to imply that climate change is a more urgent threat than Vladimir Putin or, er, terrorism. Quite the comparisons to choose...

There’s trouble in Sir Keir’s Labour paradise, it seems, after the Prime Minister jetted off to Italy for a migration-focused meet-up with Giorgia Meloni. The PM is struggling to find a small boat-busting strategy; with over 800 migrants crossing the Channel to English shores on Saturday alone, Starmer has turned to his European allies for help. Meloni’s Italy has seen a rather large drop in small boat arrivals this year compared to last, with the help of a deterrent in the form of Albania – and the Labour leader is hoping to pick up some tips during his jaunt around Rome. Yet not everyone is particularly thrilled about the meeting… As Katy Balls wrote this morning, Starmer's trip has been met with howls of outrage from those on the left.

Conference season has begun in earnest and the Lib Dems are having a whale of a time in Brighton. After their best results in a century, the party is in a bullish mood, with Sir Ed Davey even rocking up yesterday on a jet ski. The next James Bond perhaps? And it's in that spirit that the party has unveiled its latest merchandise, four months after their triumphs across the Blue Wall. The unofficial mascot for the party is now a cuddly Liberal Democrat cat, with items selling out on the first day of the Brighton conference. It's the latest anthropomorphism for a party leader after Paddy Ashdown's parrot, Charles Kennedy's duck and Nick Clegg's teddy bear.

Oh dear. It seems that the 'passes for glasses' row isn't going away any time soon. A month after it was revealed that Lord Alli had received a Downing Street pass after bankrolling Keir Starmer's wardrobe, today's Sunday Times contains a fresh development. Not content with dressing up the Prime Minister, it seems that Alli has also been kitting out his wife Victoria too. Perhaps he bought the couple matching outfits? Unfortunately for Sir Keir, while his clothes were declared in line with parliamentary rules on donations, the same cannot be said for those worn by his wife. The Sunday Times reports that the clothes were given to Lady Starmer before and after her husband entered Downing Street in July, with Labour HQ helping to organise the delivery of the goods for Lady Starmer.

To the Women and Equalities Committee, to which Labour's Sarah Owen has been elected chair. The Labour MP for Luton North achieved a majority of 7,500 in the July election and now has a select committee chairmanship under her belt too. But not everyone is especially thrilled by the announcement – not least because Owen seems to have more than a little difficulty defining, er, a woman... The day after Owen was elected committee chair, the Luton North MP appeared on the BBC's Woman's Hour with Anita Rani. But when Rani got to the all-important question of what a women is, the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee struggled to answer.