ANDY Burnham took more than £13,000 worth of freebies including horseracing tickets and a trip to Glastonbury before becoming Prime Minister, his first entry in the register of interests has revealed.
The Prime Minister has been branded "backstage Burnham" after he accepted a raft of freebies, which also included flights to Nice in the south of France and a £340 hamper and tea set gifted by the Qatari ambassador.
It comes as it was revealed in the register of members’ interests that the new Prime Minister took donations worth more than £325,000 before entering No 10.
Glastonbury Festival gifted Burnham four tickets to the music event last summer, worth £1520 in total. He was speaking at the festival held at Worthy Farm, Somerset and PRS for Music paid for accommodation for two worth £1000 at the event.
Lancashire Cricket Club gave him two tickets for a game between Hundred Manchester Originals and London Spirit at the Old Trafford cricket ground worth £458 while Burnham had his costs covered by Nordoff and Robbins Music Therapy to attend the O2 Silver Clef Awards, where he was presenting an award earlier this year.
Elsewhere, RL Commercial stumped up £450 to pay for Burnham to attend the Leigh Leopards versus Warrington Wolves rugby league game as part of the Magic Weekend event.
And he got two tickets worth £500 gratis from the Jockey Club Racecourse to attend Ladies’ Day at Aintree Racecourse earlier this year.
The Alliance Party met Burnham’s travel and accommodation costs to attend their party conference in Belfast in March to the tune of £431.
Sony Music Entertainment UK spent £3800 for the future PM and a guest to attend the Brit Awards ceremony in Manchester in February.
Bloomberg covered the cost a trip to Spain, including £391.68 on flights and £2114 on accommodation, so Burnham could speak at an event hosted by Bloomberg CityLab in Madrid in the spring.
A £2000.69 trip to Nice was funded by Marketing Manchester and saw Burnham speak at the 2026 MIPIM conference, a property and real estate event.
Altogether, the PM racked up £13,630.37 in jollies and trips abroad from corporate and charitable donors.
SNP MSP Steven Bonnar said: "First we had Free Gear Keir, now it’s Backstage Burnham.
“While hardworking Scots battle the soaring cost of living crisis, it seems like the Labour Party is more interested in pocketing freebies than bringing bills under control.
“More alarming than jollies to Glastonbury though is the unsurprising news that Burnham’s leadership campaign was bankrolled by his old mucker Josh Simons’ scandal hit Labour Together think tank."
The Prime Minister accepted £22,000 worth of staffing and IT equipment from the think tank ThinkLabour, previously known as Labour Together.
Bonnar added: "The creepy outfit was forced to re-brand itself earlier this year after it was caught up in a series of scandals including spying on journalists and failing to declare over £700,000 in donations.
“Voters in Scotland are sick fed up with sleaze-ridden Westminster governments and if Andy Burnham wants to change things he should start by handing back that Labour Together cash.”
His predecessor Keir Starmer's premiership struggled to recover after it emerged that he had racked up a record amount of gifts and freebies, topping £100,000.
Starmer accepted nearly 40 sets of free tickets before becoming PM, mostly for football matches but also including hospitality worth £4000 at a Taylor Swift gig and tickets to see Coldplay.
He also took a staggering £12,000 worth of clothes from Labour donor Lord Alli, who was given a pass to No 10 after the election.
