Starmer’s beergate is all froth – but he can’t ignore it

DOES it matter that Sir Keir Starmer had a late-night curry with party workers after a day campaigning in Durham last year? No, it doesn’t. The whole beergate row is utterly ridiculous.

There was no conceivable way that the Labour leader knocking back beer and korma with colleagues could have harmed anyone, even though it may technically have broken the Tier 2 lockdown rules. Social gatherings indoors were banned at the time.

But you know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?

After six months in which every aspect of after-work parties in No10 has been minutely examined by the media, and by Sir Keir personally, it was inevitable that the same scrutiny would be applied to him after video emerged of him drinking beer late at night with party workers.

The Labour leader’s acolytes claim it is mud-slinging. But if you don’t like mud you should stop throwing it.

I have a particular interest in beergate because I was wrong about partygate.

I thought that civil servants, who’d been working together all day, were quite entitled to have a few drinks in their own bubble after work.

What possible harm? They’d been under virtual house arrest doing extremely hard work. Why not let their hair down?

The police thought differently and handed them all fixed penalty notices. Though they only

Labour claimed that Angela Raynor was not among the 30 imbibers. It turned out that she was

investigated the matter thoroughly after political pressure. Pressure that is now being applied to Durham Police.

The Met also fined the Prime Minister for being presented with a birthday cake in his own home during a working meeting. And bizarrely they fined the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who arrived for that work meeting entirely unaware that there was anything resembling a party going on.

Sir Keir called for Rishi Sunak to resign for accidentally breaking the rules. He can hardly complain if he’s held to the same ludicrous standards.

He insists that the beer in question and the korma were partaken during a working break. It was not therefore a social event.

But there seems to be doubt about this and his accounts have been vague. It was 10pm on a Friday night after an aide had been sent out to buy £200 worth of carry out curry to accompany the beer.

Labour set further hares running by initially claiming that Sir Keir’s deputy, Angela Raynor, was not among the 30 imbibers.

It turned out that she was. Labour say they made an honest mistake, which may well be true.

Boris Johnson says his breach of the lockdown rules was an honest mistake and that’s probably true also. Yet he’s being investigated for lying.

I think we all know what really happened. Sir Keir and co had a drink and a curry after working all day and it went on a bit. I don’t think he broke the law, but I’ve been wrong before. The lockdown laws are so vague it can’t be ruled out.

This is complete madness, but unfortunately that’s where we are.