Siobhan McDonagh who is MP for Mitcham and Morden has a million-pound loan from Lord Alli

The late Baroness McDonagh and her sister Dame Siobhan McDonagh

Another day, another drama. Now it transpires that a Labour MP took a million-pound loan from Lord Alli – to buy a flat for her sister. Mitcham and Morden’s MP Siobhain McDonagh was helped in her bid to buy accommodation for her terminally ill sibling and formerly Labour’s first female general secretary, Baroness McDonagh, by Alli – with the Labour peer said to be the ‘best friend’ of the donor. How curious…

McDonagh registered the £1.2 million loan from Alli in March last year, stating that it was an ‘interest free loan to bet repaid on the sale of the home I share with a family member’. She added: ‘The move was necessary to provide the family member with complete ground floor access.’ Defending the decision, McDonagh took to social media to write:

Waheed Alli was my sister’s best friend for 25 years. Tragically she was diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumour in November 2021 and died on 24 June 2023. He took every step of her last terrible journey with her. Lending me money to buy a house with ground floor bed and bathroom. The loan will be repaid on gaining probate on Margaret’s estate. It has been properly registered and Waheed wanted nothing other than his best friend being comfortable in the last months of her life.

Further excusing her choice, McDonagh fended off accusations of cash for favours. ‘What can you give someone who has £200 million and who has been a Labour MP for 25 years?’ she tweeted furiously. While there is no suggestion of foul play, the revelation won’t do anything to help Sir Keir Starmer quash the issue. His first party conference in government has been and gone and yet the freebie fiasco rumbles on. It’s hardly the best start to the top job…

I’m not sure why they cannot borrow money in the usual way from banks etc.

£1.2 million is a bit excessive for Merton, you could get a decent size property to meet the specifications required for 50000 + - in Mitcham you’d get a palace for the money in question.

McDonagh may have declared the loan but personally I smell a rat and there are contradictions in her statements this week, was the house for her sister or her and her sister ?

If the latter did McDonagh sell her former home in the borough?

What happens to any profits made following the property sale and surely that means McDonagh then needs to look for another property.

All very confusing and not as transparent as McDonagh would like us to believe.

Digressing slightly but what's with all the titles, McDonagh is a Dame, her late sister was a Baroness - pure cronyism.