Private jet and match tickets: McCluskey in the spotlight after Unite's internal report

Union anger after claims its former boss took free trip to watch Liverpool in Madrid

- Jon Ungoed-Thomas & Xavier Greenwood

In June 2019, one of Britain's most powerful union bosses, Len McCluskey, was spotted at one of Madrid's finest hotels enjoying a discreet drink in the sunshine with Jeremy Corbyn's then chief of staff, Karie Murphy.

McCluskey had flown by private jet to watch the Champions League final between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool. An avid Liverpool supporter, he watched his team win 2-0.

McCluskey strongly denied at the time that he was in a relationship with Murphy, with legal threats issued over suggestions they were a couple. The union boss finally admitted the relationship with one of the key figures in Corbyn's team, in his 2021 autobiography Always Red.

"We engaged the press in a game of cat and mouse, getting Howard Beckett [Unite's head of legal] to use his legal genius to knock out gossipy stories," he wrote. "We wanted our relationship to be kept private, away from the public gaze."

But there was a more serious question about the Spanish jaunt, which goes to the heart of McCluskey's decade at the helm of Unite, one of Britain's biggest unions. Who picked up the bill?

In a 61-page interim report published by Unite on Tuesday, it was alleged that the Liverpool firm building a hotel and conference centre for the union had paid for the match ticket and arranged the flight for McCluskey and Murphy. It was among a number of football games the firm had arranged for the union boss to watch.

According to the report, there was "no indication" that McCluskey had reimbursed the Flanagan Group, the hotel contractor. McCluskey's lawyers told the BBC last week that he paid for his own travel and, as far as he could recollect, paid the cost of his football tickets. A legal representative for Murphy said she paid for her own travel, did not attend the match and was not staying in Madrid with McCluskey.