Starmer squirms over his own lockdown booze-up

Hypocrite: Starmer denies drinking beer and food at a staff event was a breach of lockdown rules: Who’s he trying to kid?

Labour leader Starmer says there is ‘no comparison’ with Boris Johnson’s conduct as he reiterates PM must resign, he’s right but so should he.

To pretend that he did not break the lockdown rules on ‘Participation in gatherings indoors’ is insulting to everyone.

We all agree Johnson must go, his position and quite frankly the piss-taking has made remaining PM unsustainable, however for the leader of the Labour party to be demanding his resignation while dismissing his own so-called ‘work event’ is just sheer hypocrisy.

Sir Keir Starmer squirmed during an interview with BBC’s Sophie Raworth this morning as he was confronted over his own boozy lockdown video. He was asked to explain a photo snapped of the Labour leader from last year which appeared to show him drinking a beer while chatting to party staff indoors. At the time, England was in step two of the lockdown roadmap which banned indoor mixing between households unless it was for work.

Labour Heartlands reported on all the political parties, partying during lockdown. it has been an insult to the British people on mass. Without having to express the sacrifice all have made under the instructions of both main political parties it’s disgusting that any of them nether mind both, would flout the rules so blatantly.

Sir Keir Starmer today insisted there is ‘absolutely no comparison’ between footage of him drinking a beer with Labour staff last year and Covid rule-busting parties in Downing Street.

The Labour leader said he was working when he was pictured holding a bottle and chatting to staff during a visit to a Labour constituency office in Durham on April 30 last year.

England was in step two of Boris Johnson’s lockdown exit roadmap at the time which stated that indoor mixing between households was not allowed, unless it was for work but it also quite clearly stated that:

Participation in gatherings indoors
1.—(1) No person may participate in a gathering in the Step 2 area which—

(a)consists of two or more people, and
(b)takes place indoors.
(2) Sub-paragraph (1) do not apply if any of the exceptions set out in paragraphs 4 or 5 apply.

(3) For the purposes of this Part of this Schedule, a gathering takes place in the Step 2 area if any part of the place where it takes place is in the Step 2 area.

The Labour leader of ‘brazen hypocrisy’ and called for an investigation after he has repeatedly criticised the PM over the rumbling Number 10 party row. 

The video, captured through the window of a building in Durham in the run up to last year’s Hartlepool byelection, shows Starmer drinking a bottle of beer and standing close to two people, while another two people can be seen in the background.

It was first published last spring, when indoor mixing between different households was not allowed except for work, but the picture has been republished by some media in the wake of a slew of revelations about apparent rule-breaking parties at No 10.

Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Starmer said: “I was in a constituency office just days before the election. We were very busy. We were working in the office.

“We stopped for something to eat and then we carried on working. No party, no breach of the rules and absolutely no comparison with the prime minister.”

He added: “It was perfectly lawful to meet for work, which is what we were doing. The party that was put to the prime minister on Wednesday happened because an invitation was sent to 100 people saying ‘let’s have some socially distant drinks in the garden and bring your own booze’. There is simply no comparison.”

If by that he means one was outdoors and one in or one was in Durham while the other was in London or did he mean one was Labour the other Tory, either way, you or I would have been fined for this sort of mixing during lockdown.