Keir Starmer accuses Tories of ‘trying to throw mud’ ahead of local elections as over Beergate

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Sir Keir Starmer accused the Tories of ‘throwing mud’ ahead of the local elections today as he again denied breaking lockdown rules by drinking beer with officials last year.

While repeatedly lambasting Boris Johnson over the ‘Partygate’ scandal, Sir Keir has repeatedly insisted that no rules were broken during his trip to Durham on April 30 last year.

Appearing on television today he again denied any rules were broken. He also insisted it was an ‘genuine mistake’ by Labour to deny his deputy Angela Rayner was present, when she was also there.

Asked if the deputy leader was at the office, Sir Keir told Sky News: ‘Yes. We were in the office, we were working, we paused for something to eat, there was no party, no rules were broken and that is the long and short of it.

‘I know what is going on here, we have got an election on Thursday and there are just Tory MPs trying to throw mud around because they have got nothing to say on the central issue of the cost of living.’

He later said Labour did not realise it had made a mistake when it said Ms Rayner was not at the Durham event last year.

Sir Keir said: ‘We were asked twice and I didn’t even realise we had made a mistake until it came out this week. We are a busy office, we made a mistake, it is a genuine mistake and I take responsibility for it.’

But two students who filmed a video of Sir Keir Starmer swigging beer with Labour officials during lockdown have accused him of breaking Covid rules.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, they cast doubt on the Labour leader’s claim that he was not in breach of the rules because he was attending a work meeting.

And in comments that will heap more pressure on Durham Constabulary to investigate the incident, both said they were prepared to make detailed statements to officers about what they saw.

The university students, who asked to remain anonymous, filmed a 43-second video of Sir Keir drinking a beer and chatting with colleagues just after 10pm.

At the time, indoor socialising was banned and those who disobeyed the rules faced being fined by police.

But his defence is now under fresh scrutiny after the Daily Mail last week forced Labour to admit that Deputy Leader Angela Rayner was at the Durham Miners Hall on the same day, having previously denied it.

The MoS can today reveal that Sir Keir, local Labour MP Mary Foy and a mystery woman, who may have been Ms Rayner, were actually gathered in a narrow kitchen next to Ms Foy’s office.

The eyewitnesses said the trio and other Labour officials, who were standing in a narrow corridor outside, appeared to be socialising.

‘I have never seen a work meeting with people sitting on tables, drinking San Miguel and standing around eating off plates,’ one said. ‘They weren’t having a meeting. There is a clear difference between a meeting and what was happening there, which was entirely social.’

After watching for five minutes, the pair went back to their accommodation. They returned an hour later and saw that people were still inside the room. They could not see if Sir Keir was among them.

Durham Police are facing mounting calls from Tory Ministers and MPs to launch a new probe, having announced in February that no rules had been broken.

Both witnesses said they are prepared to help the police. ‘We are the only two eyewitnesses that aren’t trying to defend it,’ one said. ‘I would be so happy to talk to them and tell them the truth.’

About three weeks before Sir Keir’s trip to Durham, factory worker Tyler James, 20, from Chester-le-Street, Durham, was fined £400 for also holding a balloon-releasing memorial for a friend who died in March 2021. ‘It just makes you think, it’s one rule for them, and one rule for us,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand, if Boris Johnson was fined, why wasn’t he?’

Durham Constabulary said: ‘We have since received further communications on this subject and will now consider the content of those communications and respond in due course.’

Keir Starmer embraces Tony Blair as he faces make-or-break local elections: Labour leader vows to make ‘gains’ as Tories insist Boris’s leadership is NOT under threat and voters ‘don’t care about partygate backlash’

Sir Keir Starmer  enlisted former prime minister Tony Blair to officially endorse his leadership today as he seeks ‘gains’ in Thursday’s local elections.

In a video to mark 25 years since Labour’s historic 1997 landslide election win, Mr Blair praises praised Sir Keir’s Starmer’s ‘strength, determination and intelligence’.

He also recounted the ‘huge ways and the myriad of small ways [that] Britain was changed for the better’ by his administration.

The endorsement is a bold move by a party in which Mr Blair remains a controversial figure. 

He is hated by the hard left for the Iraq war and centrist policies that won him three terms in office. 

Sir Keir today insisted that Labour had to make ‘gains’ in Thursday’s local elections in order for them to be a success – as a new poll suggested more than half of voters preferred him to Boris Johnson.  

Exclusive research by former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, published in today’s Mail on Sunday shows that when asked to choose between a Conservative Government led by Boris Johnson and a Labour Government led by Sir Keir, 57 per cent of people backed Sir Keir, and 43 per cent backed Mr Johnson.

But the 8,000-sample survey also picked up a 55 per cent approval rating for the Prime Minister’s handling of the Ukrainian crisis, with just 25 per cent who disapprove.

Despite the rows still raging about ‘Partygate’, the survey says the cost of living crisis is regarded as the most important issue facing the country, followed by the NHS, the economy, climate change and immigration.

Tory chairman Oliver Dowden used an interview with the Sunday Telegraph today to echo this, claiming that voters were ‘fed up’ with media attention focused on the PM’s law-breaking. 

‘The further you get from Westminster, the more people are focused on the delivery issues. There’s this perception in Westminster that every door we’re knocking on, parties are coming up on the doorstep. That really is not the case,’ he said.

Elections are taking place in some local councils in England, Wales and Scotland, as well as London boroughs and the Northern Ireland Assembly. 

The results in Britain will provide a strong marker of the state of play ahead of a general election expected in 2024.

Sir Keir denied that Labour has a secret electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats.

Asked about claims made by Conservative Party chair Oliver Dowden of a pact, the Labour leader told Sky News: ‘I wouldn’t take anything Oliver Dowden says particularly seriously.

‘The fact that he is spending his Sunday… attacking Labour… why doesn’t he say something about the cost-of-living crisis for heaven’s sake?

‘There is no pact, everybody knows there is no pact. We will put a candidate up when there is a by-election, obviously after the Neil Parish resignation of yesterday.’

He later claimed Labour is standing more candidates than ever in the local elections.

Mr Dowden claimed Sir Keir was standing down candidates ‘in swathes of the country’ where Lib Dem support is strong to avoid splitting the anti-Tory vote. And he alleges Sir Ed Davey’s party has returned the favour where Labour is dominant elsewhere.

In a letter to the Labour leader, which has been seen by The Mail on Sunday, Mr Dowden claimed that Sir Keir planned to ‘deny the voters a proper democratic choice’ on Thursday. 

If the alleged tactics are replicated at a General Election, it could see a return to the days of the Lib-Lab pacts of the 1970s.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey later also denied there was a pact, and accused the Tories of being ‘desperate’. 

He told the BBC: ‘In fact if you look at what we are doing in these local elections, we are fighting Labour in many areas, in Hull, in Sunderland, in Sheffield, in Haringey, in Southwark, I could go on.

‘This is pretty desperate from the Conservatives. I am not surprised because lifelong Conservatives are switching away from them because they are really upset that we have a Prime Minister who is not decent to run our country.’