Gary Neville makes feelings clear on Keir Starmer freebie row – 'I can't get my breath'

Expressing his astonishment at the recent criticism aimed at Keir Starmer for accepting a private box at Arsenal, Manchester United icon Gary Neville has voiced his confusion.

Former footballer and Labour supporter Neville commented on the matter during The News Agents at a Labour Party conference fringe event: “I can’t get my breath if I’m honest. I’m startled and alarmed at the amount of scrutiny that this is getting.”

It appears the Labour leader, who normally enjoyed matches among regular supporters, had to switch to a complimentary private box due to security measures a move that has unexpectedly drawn public attention.

Neville took this chance not only to defend Starmer but also to critique the past Conservative Government, highlighting substantial contracts awarded with minimal oversight during the pandemic and contrasting them with the emphasis on Starmer’s use of a private box provided without charge.

He further pointed out: “It’s certainly a very different approach and treatment to what I think has happened in the last five or 10 years. When I think of the billions of pounds of contracts that were handed out during Covid on VIP lanes without much scrutiny.”

Neville didn’t hold back when he discussed the perceived double standards, emphasising the lack of scrutiny over luxurious travel benefits enjoyed by Conservative ministers and juxtaposing it with the situation Starmer finds himself in for watching his team play.

“When I think of the £40million helicopter rides and the private jets that every single Conservative minister was getting, again without much actual scrutiny,” he added.

“And a man who’s watched with his family his football team for the last two decades, paying for his tickets every single week has been told that he can’t now go and watch his football team because obviously it’s a security detail want him to watch it in a certain area of a stadium.

“I find it alarming that he can’t go and watch his football team when I know from meeting him here a couple of years ago, that is his one moment of release each week with his children.

“And I don’t think any normal person would begrudge a person going to watch a football match together when they’ve done that all their lives, and now they’re being told that they have to do it in a certain way.

“So for me, I can’t really believe it. It’s a different level of approach. What we need to go is go back a little bit and get those billions of pounds back from the previous government’s awarding of contracts – let’s concentrate on that.

“Because actually Keir Starmer is declaring everything. I’m not quite sure that last government was declaring everything either.

“He’s the prime minister of our country. We know that leaders around the world at this moment in time can be under threat. And we need to make sure our prime minister is safe, don’t we?

“He used to as the leader of the opposition go and sit with the fans in the stadium in his seats with great humility and not have a problem with it every single week.

“But he was told a few weeks before the election that he had to change that because he was potentially going to become Prime Minister. I’m sure he’d love to go back and sit in his normal seats. He doesn’t want this. He’d like to go back and sit with the fans that he sat with all of his life.”