Starmer engages in Sunak smear tactics
LABOUR LEADER ATTACKS CHANCELLOR OVER WIFE’S RUSSIA ‘TIES’
HERE we were thinking that the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was a man of principle.
Having said he did not believe in targeting the families of politicians, he attacked the chancellor Rishi Sunak not on economic policy, but via his wife Akshata Murty, a shareholder in the Indian IT company Infosys.
That’s a bit like alleging any motorist who fills up at a garage is taking Putin’s “blood money” (language used in one of the tabloids) since Britain is still buying oil from Russia.
Sunak did respond to the smears in a BBC Newscast podcast when he suggested his experience was similar to that of Will Smith – who dramatically slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars for joking about his wife’s shaven head.
“At least I didn’t get up and slap anybody, which is good,” he said.
He defended both his wife and her father, NR Narayana Murthy, one of the founders of Infosys: “Actually, it’s very upsetting and, I think, wrong for people to try and come at my wife. And you know, beyond that actually, with regard to my father-in-law, for whom I have nothing but enormous pride and admiration for everything that he’s achieved, and no amount of attempted smearing is going to make me change that.”
Shares valued at between £400 million and £690m held in Infosys by Sunak’s wife have become a big political issue, with both the BBC and the Guardian reporting that the company has now decided to close its offices in Moscow.
“Sources told the BBC the company was trying to find replacement roles abroad for staff employed in Moscow,” said the BBC.
The Guardian reported, “A source at Infosys told the Guardian that the company was ‘in the process of urgently closing down its Russian operation’ and ‘relocating staff to other countries’.”
A spokesman for the chancellor has already stated: “Mr Murthy retired from Infosys in October 2014 and has not had any contact with the company since then. Ms Murty is one of thousands of minority shareholders in the company. It is a public company and neither her nor any member of her family has any involvement in the operational decisions of the company.”
In the Commons, Labour’s shadow cabinet office minister Fleur Anderson was ordered by the speaker to withdraw a claim that Sunak was “hypocritical” because he had urged UK firms not to aid Putin by investing in Russia.
Most disgracefully, Sir Keir attacked Sunak in an interview on Sky TV, when he said there was a “fundamental question of principle” regarding the chancellor’s wife. “Is their household benefiting from money made in Russia when the government’s put in place sanctions?
“That is in the public interest for us to have an answer to. I’m not attacking their family – I don’t agree with that way of doing politics. But I do want to know – is the chancellor’s household benefiting from money from a company that’s investing in Russia when the government is saying – quite rightly – that nobody should be doing that, sanctions should be in place?,” Sir Keir said.
“I would have thought the chancellor would actually want to come clean on this and say ‘actually, I can be very, very clear that my household doesn’t benefit from any money that’s come in any way from Russia during this invasion of Ukraine’.
“It’s a simple question. I think he should just answer it. It would actually help his wife if he just answered that question.”
It might actually help Sir Keir’s standing in the British Indian community if he stopped desperately clawing around at the bottom of the barrel.