Keir Starmer changes curry night story: Labour leader describes a buffet feast with colleagues
Pressure rises for Durham police to probe Sir Keir’s curry night after Labour leader CHANGES his story to describe a buffet feast with colleagues… despite them being BANNED at the time
Police are now facing renewed pressure to investigate ‘Beergate’ Keir Starmer admitted sharing a lockdown curry with up to 30 Labour officialsA former chief constable yesterday said Durham police should ‘reconsider’ their initial dismissal of the case in the light of ‘new information’
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Police faced renewed pressure to investigate ‘Beergate’ yesterday after Keir Starmer admitted sharing a lockdown curry with up to 30 Labour officials at a time when buffets were banned.
A former chief constable yesterday said Durham police should ‘reconsider’ their initial dismissal of the case in the light of ‘new information’.
And a Tory MP urged the force to speak to Sir Keir’s Scotland Yard bodyguards about what they witnessed at the now notorious event on April 30 last year, when the Labour leader was filmed enjoying a late night beer with activists.
For the second day running, Sir Keir struggled to answer questions about the event at Durham Miners Hall, which took place at a time when almost all indoor socialising was banned.
The event has drawn comparisons with the so-called ‘birthday party’ in No 10 which resulted in Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak each being fined £50 – and prompted Sir Keir to call for them to resign.
Confronted on ITV’s Good Morning Britain with a copy of yesterday’s Mail, the Labour leader insisted there was ‘no breach of the rules’, despite lockdown laws at the time banning almost all indoor socialising.
However, he did not challenge reports that the Friday night gathering was attended by up to 30 people.
Keir Starmer during a visit to a pensioners drop-in session in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, May 4
In a bruising interview with Susanna Reid on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the Labour leader repeatedly insisted the group had been at work in Durham last year
Labour officials are said to have ordered £200 of takeaway curries for staff at the end of a long week on the campaign trail.
Sir Keir told ITV’s Richard Madeley: ‘This was brought in and at various points people went into the kitchen, got a plate, had some food to eat and got on with their work.’
At the time, lockdown laws allowed staff to meet indoors if doing so was ‘reasonably necessary for work’. However, official guidance on buffet-style serving was clear.
It stated: ‘There should not be any sharing of food and drink by staff who do not share a household. Minimise self-serving options for food and drink. As far as possible, food served and/or displayed should be individually wrapped to minimise contact and avoid spread of infection.’
Having claimed his curry – and beer – were consumed during a break from work, yesterday saw Sir Keir struggle to say what duties he carried out after he was filmed holding his bottle at 10.04pm.
The ‘online event for members’ cited as an example concluded at 9.18pm.
Sir Keir also stated that he had recorded ‘pieces to camera’ for social media, but just one Facebook clip appears to have been recorded that day – and it was shot during daylight hours.
For the second day running, Sir Keir struggled to answer questions about the event at Durham Miners Hall, which took place at a time when almost all indoor socialising was banned
Police faced renewed pressure to investigate ‘Beergate’ yesterday after Keir Starmer admitted sharing a lockdown curry with up to 30 Labour officials at a time when buffets were banned
Last night a picture emerged of what may have been his official car (above) in Durham that evening. This raises the prospect that his police protection team might be able to provide bombshell testimony, in the same way that officers are being asked for their recollections of ‘Partygate’ events in Downing Street
Cabinet minister Nigel Adams accused the Labour leader of talking ‘bull***’ and ‘dodging’ key questions.
Richard Holden, Tory MP for North West Durham, told his local force that an event involving 30 people was ‘well above the number allowed to meet indoors under the regulations (at the time), and definitely not necessary for work purposes’.
In a letter seen by the Daily Mail, Mr Holden noted that bystanders were now coming forward who were not interviewed when the police initially dismissed the case last year after reviewing a 43-second video filmed by a passer-by.
The letter to Durham’s deputy chief constable Ciaron Irvine continued: ‘Given the serious nature of this new testimony, I hope you will be reaching out to the witnesses involved, as well as the Metropolitan Police officers present at the event, as part of your investigation into what took place.’
It was claimed last night that the Durham force had not yet requested the full, unedited footage of Sir Keir’s beer.
The person who filmed it told The Daily Telegraph they have had ‘no contact’ with police.
Tory MP Michael Fabricant said: ‘Keir Starmer has seized on the statement by police that they had fully investigated… and found that no rules had been breached. However, it now seems that Durham police have not done this at all.’
Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said Durham Constabulary should reconsider a probe into the allegations.
‘I think they should probably just look at the new information and reconsider their situation,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.
‘I think, once again, it highlights that a lot of the legislation around coronavirus was confused, so I think the police have been struggling.’
A Durham Constabulary spokesman said yesterday: ‘We have received a number of recent communications on this subject, which we are considering and will respond in due course.’
It comes after Mr Starmer griped that people keep asking him about ‘Beergate’ on Wednesday as a former police chief suggested the gathering should be looked at again.
The Labour leader complained there was too much focus on Tory ‘mudslinging’ rather than the cost-of-living crisis as he was grilled on claims he shared £200 worth of curry with up to 30 aides.
Meanwhile, Sir Peter Fahy, ex-chief constable of Greater Manchester, said Durham Police ‘should probably just look at the new information and reconsider their situation’.
Sir Keir could not hide his irritation after the incident was repeatedly raised on his final day of campaigning ahead of crunch local elections tomorrow.
In a bruising interview with Susanna Reid on ITV‘s Good Morning Britain, the Labour leader repeatedly insisted the group had been at work in Durham last year.
But Sir Keir looked distinctly uncomfortable as he failed to deny that there had been dozens of people present.
He stressed that the group had been ‘on the road’ for elections last year, and were still working even though it was around 10pm.
Speaking to reporters in Wakefield later, Sir Keir said: ‘I have not had contact from Durham Police and I think people are just about fed up with the mudslinging that’s going on.
‘We know there’s elections coming, we know what the Conservatives are up to. What we need to do, I think, is focus on the issue in hand, which is the cost of living.’
Asked what he was doing at 11pm in Durham on the night in question, and if he went back to work having eaten, he said: ‘We were working, we stopped, we ate. No breach of the rules. No party. And I think that’s enough for the mudslinging from the Tories on this.
‘Let’s focus on the issue in hand, which is the cost-of-living crisis, to which they have got absolutely no answer. We have got clear answers on that.’
Asked how many people were with him on the night, and if it was as many as 30, he said: ‘I had a team with me. We were working in the office. No breach of the rules, no party.
‘This relentless focus on mudslinging instead of the issue in hand by the Conservatives means that they’ve got no answer to the real question that so many people want answered, which is: ‘what are you going to do to help me with my bills?”
However, Labour is facing demands to explain more details about the episode.
The curry order was made after 9pm and included biryanis, bhunas and tikka masalas, according to The Sun.
Keir Starmer visited a pensioners’ drop-in session in Wakefield as the local election campaign draws to an end
Sir Keir is trying to keep the focus on Boris Johnson (pictured in Southampton ) ahead of the local elections
A local source told the newspaper: ‘There was a lot of food. It came to at least £200 and would have fed 25 or 30 people. It was a late-night delivery the last order of the night.
‘It must have been placed around 9pm maybe. Last orders are at 10pm and everything at the restaurant is freshly-cooked, so it would’ve taken time.
‘A man came to the door to collect it, but it wasn’t Keir.’
Durham Constabulary is under mounting pressure to reopen its investigation into the event at the offices of Durham MP Mary Foy in the run-up to last year’s local elections.
A spokesman for the force said today: ‘We have received a number of recent communications on this subject, which we are considering and will respond in due course.’
Sir Peter told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: ‘I think they should probably just look at the new information and reconsider their situation.
‘I think, once again, it highlights that a lot of the legislation around coronavirus was confused, so I think the police have been struggling with this.
‘But what came out from Parliament and what came out from the Home Secretary at the time was (that) really almost a deciding factor was repeated breach of the regulations, and I think that’s really what caused the pressure on the Metropolitan Police to have to investigate those alleged offences.
‘So, I think Durham do need to probably reconsider it, but on the other hand I also think this is really quite dangerous times when policing is sort of being drawn into party politics, and I think that’s starting to happen.’
Sir Keir confirmed that the force had not been in touch.
