Starmer gets police ‘beergate’ letter

Labour leader to submit evidence as Cummings claims PM and his wife held parties in Chequers

SIR KEIR STARMER and Angela Rayner have received police questionnaires over the “beergate” gathering where they ate a curry with campaign staff during lockdown.

The Labour leader and his deputy will now submit evidence to the police over the incident, which took place in Durham in April 2021.

Durham police launched an investigation into the event, where about 15 campaign staff ate curry and drank beer after a day’s campaigning. Labour has claimed that they continued working after stopping for the meal break. Both Sir Keir and Ms Rayner have pledged to resign if they are fined over the event, as Labour attempts to draw a moral distinction between its leaders and Boris Johnson.

The revelation came last night after Dominic Cummings claimed that lockdown parties were held at Chequers, and Carrie Johnson was accused of falling out with a member of staff there, who later quit.

Mr Cummings, the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser, said both Sue Gray and the Metropolitan Police had failed to investigate claims that gatherings were held in Mr Johnson’s grace-andfavour country home.

In an interview with the website Unherd yesterday, he criticised Mrs Johnson at length and suggested she had hosted parties in No 10 attended by Westminster journalists. “Carrie is friends with a lot of them and it was persistently stated that they were hanging out with her and him,” he said.

“But, obviously, the police and Sue Gray decided not to investigate that — or to investigate Chequers, either.”

Asked whether parties took place at the stately home, Mr Cummings replied: “So people say.”

A source who was in Downing Street during the pandemic told The Daily Telegraph that there was “general chatter and concern” from officials and special advisers in Mr Johnson’s private office that rules were being broken at Chequers, adding: “I know there were gatherings.”

A second source said there had been “rumours” of rule-breaking at the property during the pandemic.

Last night, Downing Street did not directly deny that events had taken place but pointed to the fact that Mr

Cummings had been encouraged to hand over any evidence of parties to both Ms Gray and the Met, who investigated relevant leads.

Ms Gray has said that she will not reopen her inquiry if further events come to light, but admitted it was “possible that events took place which were not the subject of investigation”.

She has already faced criticism for her decision not to examine claims that a flat party took place in Mr and Mrs Johnson’s private home in November 2020, in breach of lockdown rules. In her report, she said she had not investigated the event further after the Met Police opened its investigation.

In his interview, Mr Cummings also claimed he advised Mr Johnson not to hand a peerage to Lord Lebedev, a businessman and son of a Russian former KGB officer. “I said to him: ‘You shouldn’t do this,’” Mr Cummings said.

His comments come after it was reported that a member of staff at Chequers apparently left with a payout after clashing with Mrs Johnson shortly after they started using the residence.

It is claimed that Mrs Johnson had a personal dispute with Charlotte Vine, the head housekeeper at Chequers, before she left her role and signed a non-disclosure agreement in 2020.

A spokesman for Mrs Johnson said there was no such disagreement and she had not asked for her to be sacked.

The Times claimed Mrs Vine was separately disciplined over “inappropriate handling of a personal item” she found in Mr Johnson’s bathroom at Chequers shortly after he took office, but that the action was later dropped.

A Government spokesman said staffing at Chequers was a matter for the independent trust that runs it.

Mrs Vine declined to comment.