Angela Rayner has admitted her DJ booth jaunt was a freebie. (Image: Dense Van Outen/Instagram)
When the video of in a DJ booth in Ibiza first dropped I really didn’t know quite what to make of it.
In one sense I felt like she’d made a . As second in command there was a hell of a lot of serious stuff going on back at home – and her boss Keir was also out of the country after having warned the nation about impending economic difficulties and the need for sacrifices.
But I also have very strong views about politicians being able to lead normal lives in their hard-earned spare time, even though jumping around to awful music played so loud you can’t think wouldn’t be my own personal preference.
Her holiday, her money, her choice was my verdict. Except now it’s emerged that it wasn’t her cash.
Instead, it was yet another freebie to add to her growing collection of free holiday accommodation and clothes, accepted despite earning a salary that most people in the UK could only dream of, £158,851 a year to be precise.
:
In the latest register of MPs’ financial interests, revealed yesterday (October 2), the deputy prime minister declared she received £836 of hospitality on her “visit to (a) DJ booth” at nightclub Hi Ibiza. It was paid for by Ayita LLC, which is the agent of DJ Fisher, who she was filmed dancing with.
She said of the video at the time: “I take my job really seriously, and I’m always in parliament doing what needs to be done. You’ve got to have downtime… I’m working class, I like a dance,” reported LBC.
Wow. A dance in a DJ box that if she weren’t an MP accepting shed loads of freebies would have set her back almost a grand. Yep! Totally in reach for most of us lot, Ange…
Many people are in professions that are routinely offered complimentary tickets and the like. But when you are an elected official – with all of the levers of power – it’s a different matter.
People want to impress and woo you to get their own way and you have to be super cautious about accepting anything that could alter your decision-making.
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However, as a councillor myself, I definitely do see that sometimes accepting hospitality is actually part of your role. Perhaps you need to give a speech at an awards ceremony or attend a gig to help understand your area more, raise the profile of your department and applaud its successes.
Accepting hospitality in a DJ booth, however, is literally none of these things. The thing that irks me most about this whole thing is not the freebies themselves, it’s the God-awful hypocrisy of Rayner calling out who have done it, Boris included.
Her boss has now taken the very odd decision to pay back some – but not all – of his extortionate amount of freebies whilst saying he’s going to make changes to the system.
Unfortunately, for me at least, it’s all too little and far too late. The actions of Starmer and Rayner have simply poured fuel onto the assertion that all politicians are in it for themselves and greedily feed from the same trough. Shame on them.