The Prime Minister also defended his approach to donations. He has accepted more than £100,000 of free tickets and gifts since the 2019 election, more than any other party leader.
Speaking about taking free Arsenal tickets in the corporate area, Sir Keir said it was “common sense” as he could no longer watch from the stands because of security concerns.
Sir Keir also defended taking donations – including for clothing and glasses – from Lord Alli, saying he had “followed the rules” and declared gifts properly so it was all “transparent”.
But he faced criticism from Baroness Harman, a former acting Labour leader, who said that Sir Keir’s “doubling down” on the donations row was “making things worse”.
She told Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast: “You can either double down on it and try and justify it or you can just say it was probably a misstep, if I had my time again I wouldn’t do it and therefore I’m going to auction for charity or something.
“It’s not a hanging offence, but I think doubling down and trying to justify it is making things worse.
“He’s not a sort of money focused, greedy type person. He is a person of public service. So this is slightly out of line. And he’ll be wanting to deal with it.”
What Starmer said … and what it means
On Sue Gray
Sir Keir said he was “completely in control”, despite the anonymous briefings and leaks over the Sue Gray row.
In a series of interviews for the regional press, he told a reporter that he was “not going to get into discussions about individual salaries”.
“I’m completely in control. I’m focused and every day the message from me to the team is exactly the same, which is we have to deliver,” he said.
The comments follow days of briefings and leaks from Labour political advisers about the salary and influence of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
The BBC revealed that Ms Gray was being paid £170,000 – much more than her predecessor – at a time when many special advisers had taken pay cuts on coming to government.
On free football tickets
The Prime Minister defended receiving free corporate tickets to watch Arsenal, saying it was “common sense” as it was safer than being in the stands and would not be a cost to the taxpayer.
He said: “Since I’ve been Prime Minister, the security advice is don’t go in the stands, not least because it’ll cost a fortune to the taxpayer in security police officers if you choose to go in the stands.
“I’ve taken that advice, I’ve been offered a ticket somewhere else. Frankly, I’d rather be in the stands but I’m not going to ask the taxpayer to indulge me to be in the stands when I could go and sit somewhere else where the club and the security say it’s safer for me to be. That is for me a common-sense situation.”
However, this comment does not explain why Sir Keir received a large number of free tickets to Arsenal when he was leader of the opposition, and the security rules did not apply.
On free clothes
Sir Keir also defended the £16,200 donation towards clothes from Lord Alli, one of Labour’s major donors.
He said he had always “followed the rules” and declared gifts properly so that everything was “transparent”.
“The important thing in all of this is that we follow the rules, which is really important to me and make the declarations so that everything is transparent,” he said.
However, the Prime Minister’s office did not always follow the rules. It emerged that he had not originally declared that the £16,200 was for clothes, saying merely that it was to support his private office. The register was updated a month later.
On NHS Wales
Sir Keir Starmer accepted for the first time the parlous state of the NHS in Labour-run Wales, saying it “desperately” needed reform.
His comments came on the day that waiting lists hit a record high in the principality for the sixth month in a row.
Over the past 14 years, Wales has had consistently poorer health outcomes than England, where the NHS was run by the Conservatives until the last election.
Asked if Welsh Labour had run the health service well, he said: “There are challenges… I’m not going to pretend to you otherwise”.
On winter fuel
Challenged over his decision to cut winter fuel payments, the Labour leader said he did not want to give people false hope.
Sir Keir repeated that it was important to get as many pensioners as possible on to pension credit, and he said next year the state pension was due to go up by more than the loss of the allowance.
“What we’re doing is taking the necessary steps to deliver the change that we promised,” he said. “In order to do so we are going to take the tough decisions early.
“We’ve got to deal with the £22 billion black hole. With the winter fuel payment it is important that we get as many pensioners as possible on to pension credit, which obviously then protects them and they get the payment.”
He did not mention the fact that alongside cutting the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners, he had decided to increase the wages of striking train drivers and junior doctors.