Britain’s Labour Party gathers after a rocky start in government and a scandal over clothes

LONDON (AP) — This should be a time of celebration for Britain’s Labour Party, which opens its annual conference Sunday less than three months after winning power in a landslide after 14 years in opposition.

But it’s no victory lap for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

His government is facing a reckoning with a battered economy and an electorate impatient for change. The mood among Labour members gathering in the northwest England city of Liverpool has been further dampened by a tempest over Starmer’s acceptance of freebies at a time when the millions of people are struggling with the cost of living.

Starmer insists he followed the rules when he took clothes and designer eyeglasses from Waheed Alli, a media entrepreneur and longtime Labour donor. But after days of negative headlines, the party now says Starmer won’t accept any more free outfits.

“I get that people are angry,” said Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who also accepted donations to pay for clothing.

“But donations for gifts and hospitality and monetary donations have been a feature of our politics for a very long time,” she told the BBC. “People can look it up and see what people have had donations for, and the transparency is really important.”

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Starmer won the July 4 election on a promise to “restore politics as a force for good” after scandal-tarnished years under the Conservatives. He vowed to get the country’s sluggish economy growing and restore frayed public services such as the state-funded National Health Service.

Since then, he has struck a gloomy note, saying there is a 22 billion pound ($29 billion) “black hole” in the public finances left by the Conservative government, and warning that “things will get worse” before they get better. One of the government’s first major acts was to strip millions of retirees of a payment intended to help heat their homes in winter.

Starmer also had to deal with anti-immigrant unrest that erupted after three children were stabbed to death in Southport, near Liverpool in July. Starmer responded firmly, pledging swift justice and tough sentences for rioters. But prison overcrowding, a legacy of the last government, meant hundreds of inmates had to be freed early to make way for the newly convicted rioters.

Then came the clothing scandal, dubbed “frockgate” after dresses gifted to the prime minister’s wife, Victoria Starmer.

Keir Starmer is also facing grumbling among his own employees over the salary of his chief of staff, Sue Gray. The BBC disclosed that she is paid 170,000 pounds ($225,000) a year — about 3,000 pounds more than the prime minister’s salary. The government says it wasn’t involved in setting the pay scale for political advisers.

Labour says that the criticism is being whipped up by the Conservatives and their media supporters. But polls suggest it has hurt. An Ipsos poll released Friday found 25% of respondents thought Starmer was doing a good job – down from 36% in July -- while 42% thought he was doing a bad job, up from 14%. The firm interviewed 1,082 adults by telephone and the margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

“He promised to be different, but he hasn’t been,” Conservative lawmaker Chris Philp told the BBC. “He is not running a government of service, he is running a government of self-service.”

The diet of bad news has alarmed many Labour members, who worry worse is to come in the form of tax increases and spending cuts when the government announces its first budget on Oct. 30.

Labour leaders will try to convey a more positive message when Treasury chief Rachel Reeves makes a televised conference speech on Monday, followed by Starmer on Tuesday. They’re hoping to inject some cheer into the four-day conference, a blend of pep rally, policy forum and boozy bash that plays a key role in maintaining morale among party activists.

The government argues that it has already made a string of positive changes, including ending a wave of public-sector strikes. In the coming weeks, it plans legislation to take public ownership of the railways, set up a state-owned green energy firm, impose tougher rules on water firms that dump sewage and strengthen rights for workers and renters.

Victoria Honeyman, professor of British politics at the University of Leeds, said Labour’s first months in office were destined to be difficult because voters’ expectations were so high.

“But they have made mistakes,” she said. “The business with the clothing, it’s not a terminal blow, but it’s the kind of thing that will stick in people’s minds for a certain amount of time and could so easily have been avoided.

“It smacks of a lack of attention or a lack of caution, neither of which are good looks.”