Daily Express's shocking hypocrisy over Andy Burnham's donations

“Andy Burnham’s shocking £345,000 in donations – from Aintree to Glastonbury ticket” fumed the Daily Express on Wednesday, as hack Holly Kintuka attempted to accuse the newish PM of having his snout in the trough.

“Andy Burnham has received £345,000 in donations in the past 12 months, with Lord Sainsbury and Lord Blunkett among those who gave money to the Prime Minister,” she revealed. “Mr Burnham also accepted two tickets worth £3,800 from Sony Music to attend the Brit Awards, two tickets worth £500 to Aintree racecourse and four tickets to last year’s Glastonbury festival, during his former role as the mayor of Greater Manchester.”

Are you scandalised yet? What followed was truly shocking – in terms of the poor standard of proof-reading at the Express.

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“Lord Sainsbury, a promiment [sic] Labour donor, handed £164,347 including in the form of ‘office space’ and the cost of contractors working on ‘policy and operations’ for Mr Burnham from June. Lord Blunkett donated £2,000 during the Makerfield by-election campaign.

“The fillings also show that Mr Burham [sic] recieved [sic] £25,000 from businessman Gary Lubner towards his Labour leadership bid, £50,000 from a company run by TV producer Charlie Parsons, and that ThinkLabour, the think-tank formerly known as Labour Together, gave over £22,000 in staffing and IT equipment for the Prime Minsiter’s [sic] office in June. Ernst And Young provided a secondment to his team worth £16,500 in July.”

None of this (especially the spelling) is likely to win Kintuka any journalism awards, given all the donations were above board and declared in full and on time in the House of Commons’ Register of Members’ Interests.

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A stark contrast, then, to Reform leader Nigel Farage, whose every utterance the Express continues to report as if they were Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments – even after he failed to declare a £5 million “unconditional gift” from a Thai-based crypto billionaire.

On that, the Express and any of its columnists are yet to file a critical word, instead publishing articles such as “Nigel Farage hits back as he says ‘no obligation’ to declare £5m gift from billionaire” by its deputy political editor Steph Spyro, “Nigel Farage pal issues 4-word verdict when asked if Reform UK leader will quit” by Ewan Gleadow (those four words were “Of course he’s tired” by an “unnamed pal”) and “POLL: Do you care about Nigel Farage’s £5m gift for securing Brexit?”, the results of which are oddly unavailable.

Still, not as shocking as Burnham pocketing two grand from David Blunkett for his by-election campaign and declaring it immediately!