‘Do You Have A Violin Small Enough?’ Kay Burley Skewers Minister Over Starmer Freebies Row

Kay Burley cornered a cabinet minister over the long and controversial list of freebies Keir Starmer has accepted over the last five years.

Sky News has measured the value of all the gifts MPs have accepted since 2019 – and the prime minister comes out on top.

In fact, Starmer accepted two and a half times more in freebies compared to the next MP in the list, having taken a whopping £107,145 in presents, benefits, and hospitality in total.

He’s even declared more in free gifts over the last two months alone than the average wage.

So Burley put business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds in the hot seat over the controversy on Thursday morning.

The presenter began by quoting the PM’s response to the backlash: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan, I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons, therefore if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game.

“You could say well bad luck, that’s why gifts have to be registered. But you know, never going to an Arsenal game because I can’t accept a gift of hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”

Burley sarcastically asked Reynolds: “Do you have a violin small enough for that?”

The minister overlooked the jibe and said: “Anyone doing a job of the pressure, of the scale of the importance that the prime minister does they spend every bit of their waking life on it.

“And if they’ve got the chance for a little bit of time with family or something that’s important to them, in this case, life-long support for a football team, I don’t have a problem with that.”

He said it’s important to have a completely open system of transparency in this country.

Burley then asked if the same rules applied to Taylor Swift and Coldplay concerts – and Reynolds said yes, as they were cultural moments.

The Sky News host asked: “You’re very content that you’re taking £300 off pensioners while he’s freeloading with £107,000 worth of freebies?”

Reynolds said that was a conflation of two separate issues and that that restricting the winter fuel payments is a result of “Tory chaos”.

Burley also asked why Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, is earning £170,000 a year – £3,000 more than prime minister.

Reynolds that there was a system in place to decide how much civil servants get paid.

But Burley pushed: “Explain to me the stunning arrogance of a member of staff who thinks they should earn more than the boss?”

The minister said it was an important job which reflects previous experience.

The presenter said: “Didn’t you tell us that money was so tight that you had no choice but to allow pensioners to freeze? She had an option to turn this down but she didn’t.”

She added: “Do you at all accept that the optics of that are going to stick in the craw of a lot of people? C’mon.”

Reynolds deflected by saying the Tories had left serious problems with the government finances.

“He [Starmer] said, ‘we’re all in this together’ – we’re not all in this together, are we?” Burley said.

Reynolds just said the government is addressing the black hole in the finances, but Burley cut him off to say: “It’s ridiculous! How can you sit there and defend this nonsense?

“Are you really comfortable defending what you’ve defended this morning?”

But Reynolds maintained that he was.