Starmer drops in polls over sound judgment
The partygate furore has highlighted the discrepancies in Britain’s Covid lockdown fines and prompted accusations of one rule for the politicians and others for the public. So what of the cases where party hosts were hammered hard? Tristan Kirk reports
SIR KEIR STARMER’S leadership was under fresh scrutiny today as a new poll showed his ratings for sound judgement and being good in a crisis dropping.
However, the Ipsos survey for the Standard also found that just nine per cent of adults in Britain believe Boris Johnson is more honest than most politicians.
Comparing the two leaders, Sir Keir, who is waiting to hear if he will be fined over the alleged beergate party, is more likely than Mr Johnson to be seen as a capable leader (32 v 26 per cent), having sound judgement (31 v 17 per cent), understanding Britain’s problems (41 v 29 per cent), and less likely to be viewed as out of touch (35 v 64 per cent). But the Prime Minister is more likely to be seen as good in a crisis (31 v 19 per cent).
Key findings now for Sir Keir, compared to December, include:
• 31 per cent believe he has sound judgement, down from 38 per cent.
• 19 per cent say he is good in a crisis, down slightly from 23 per cent.
• 41 per cent believe he understands the problems facing Britain, down from 46 per cent.
Overall, 48 per cent of adults say they are dissatisfied with Sir Keir, and 31 per cent satisfied, giving him a net satisfaction score of -17, compared to -14 in April. For Mr Johnson, 64 per cent say they are dissatisfied and just 28 per cent satisfied, a net score of -36, down from -33.
Other findings for Mr Johnson include:
• Nine per cent say he is more honest than most politicians, from 18 per cent.
• The proportion who say he has a lot of personality has dropped to 48 per cent.
• 31 per cent say he is good in a crisis, up from 26 per cent.
Ipsos’s Gideon Skinner said: “Neither party leader has a very strong image among the public at the moment.”
• Ipsos interviewed 1,013 adults in Britain between May 11 and 17. Data are weighted.
WHEN the Met police drew a line under its Partygate probe by announcing that 126 fixed penalty notices have been issued and the investigation is over, Downing Street no doubt wished the saga was near to an end.
Boris Johnson already has a £50 fine on his record over his 2020 birthday party in the Cabinet Office, but has apparently escaped censure for events he attended including the “bring your own booze” gathering in No10’s garden.
Yet government staffers have apparently been fined for those same events, prompting complaints that junior workers have been punished while those at the top have largely been let off the hook — although senior civil servant Sue Gray’s full report on the gatherings is still to come.
In this mess, the Government has — inadvertently shone a light on the use of lockdown laws throughout the pandemic among the general public, and disturbing trends that have emerged: uneven decision-making, baffling inequality, confusion and secrecy.
The laws were the most extreme curbs on freedoms in this country since the Second World War, and it was Mr Johnson’s government that decided fines, penalties and prosecutions were needed to keep the public in line.
Yet it is still hard to understand how and why the laws have sometimes been applied, in Downing Street and beyond.
Doyin Adeyemi, 27, of Erith, cradled her six-week-old baby as she appeared at Westminster magistrates’ court this year over a gathering in February 2021.
She had been at the property to “pick up my stuff”, she said, and happened upon a birthday party. Police issued fines to four people, including her, but decided two others there could go free.
“Why did I get a fine but not them?” she complained, but was shut down by the district judge: “You need to decide whether or not in that house you were with more than two people — yes? Then I will take that as a guilty plea.”
No consideration of any “reasonable excuse”, no ifs, no buts, and a £150 fine.
In the Partygate probe, FPNs have been issued to 83 people — a surprisingly low number considering the Met decided eight gatherings were essentially illegal. Attention will now shift to the Gray report, which could be published next week, but it’s unlikely to decipher why the Met took the decisions to fine, and not fine, when it did.
When staff at Notting Hill Fish + Meat
If the PM escaped more fines because No 10 is his home and workplace, that has not been an exemption for others
Shop were called in by their boss for a crisis meeting in last January’s lockdown, police spied the gathering through a window. Nine FPNs were handed out to those at the shop owner’s flat, and pleas that it was a work meeting they had been ordered to attend were batted away in court. In the information vacuum created by the Met, there is speculation the PM may have escaped more fines because No 10 is his home and workplace. If true, that is not an exemption others had the benefit of.
Another mystery is that no one in Downing Street has been penalised for “holding” a party, which may have led to a £10,000 fine. Everyone has been fined for “participating”. Top civil servant Martin Reynolds sent round the “bring your own booze” invite in May 2020, but that was before five-figure “super-fines” had been invented. Questions remain on whether anyone organised the other parties, or if they were spontaneous.
In the courts, Enfield resident Torino Reid was hit with London’s biggest single Covid fine of £14,000 for “holding” a disco
party in his shed for his niece’s
birthday. He has struggled to pay the bill and could face further sanctions.
From £50 fines to life-changing penalties, offenders have been given 28 days to pay up or face the possibility of more fines, bailiffs, and even arrest and prison. Scotland Yard said it ruled out the possibility of fines increasing in size for repeat offenders in Downing Street, saying that would “not have been fair”.
That’s in contrast to Mayfair resident Marcus Oligarce, 30, who was fined £30,000 in March for three parties — he was clearly dealt with more harshly by the court as a repeat offender.
In any event, fairness has been in short supply when it comes to Covid laws. Early in the pandemic, the Coronavirus Act 2020 was grievously misused by police forces, and there was an admission that every prosecution brought under that law was wrong.
Police forces also faced stern criticism for misinterpreting powers under the Health Protection Regulations 2020 — which set out the laws for enforcing lockdown, mask-wearing, and closing business. But despite the emerging “error rate”, Attorney General Suella Braverman decided Covid prosecutions — for people who did not pay fines — could be conducted through the opaque Single Justice Procedure. For months, Westminster magistrates court convicted and sentenced defendants in total secrecy, having forgotten to tell anyone that cases were happening.
When the courts finally began to share information, I dug into the legal papers and police evidence of Covid breaches, uncovering a lack of consistency, mystifying decision-making, and obvious signs of miscarriages of justice.
A 21-year-old Kingston man with a £10,000 party fine was convicted after he had been written to by the police to say “case closed”. A south London woman was issued with a FPN after she walked to Borough Market for some food and drink. A habitual beggar who twice refused to leave her normal spot in Tesco car park was fined £2,500.
Police and government have resisted calls to review the Covid laws and how they have been used, without a proper appeals process. If anything good is to come from the Downing Street saga, it will force MPs, ministers, and perhaps even the PM to look closely at the chaos and confusion these laws unleashed.