Nadine Dorries accuses Keir Starmer of lockdown lies

Nadine Dorries has become the second cabinet minister to urge police to investigate allegations that Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner broke coronavirus rules last year.

The culture secretary claimed that “no reasonable person believes” Starmer’s account of a campaign event in Durham in April last year.

Conservative MPs have increasingly drawn attention to the event, at which Starmer was photographed drinking beer, since Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were fined last month for breaking lockdown rules.

At the time of Starmer’s event, indoor socialising was banned. But the Labour leader has said he was working at Durham Miners Hall as part of a campaigning visit and stopped for food before resuming work. Labour has said that a quiz organised by the local party that night was hosted in a different building, and was online rather than in person.

Dorries urged Durham police to investigate after the Daily Mail reported that the video of Starmer was taken at 10.04pm on a Friday night, and that those present ate an Indian takeaway — although this claim was later retracted by the delivery driver who initially suggested he had delivered the order.

Dorries wrote: “We are expected to believe that a curry and beers arrived for about 30 people at 10pm, and this was a break for a work meeting? No reasonable person believes Labour’s story, so why do Durham police and what were they told?”

Dorries’s comments follow Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, saying last week: “I certainly think there should be a consistency of the application of the law, that’s what we all deserve, whether we’re in London or whether we’re in Durham. I saw the photographs of Keir Starmer standing with a bottle of beer with a whole group of people. If that is defined as an illegal gathering in Downing Street I’m not sure why that isn’t defined as an illegal gathering in Durham.”

Sources at Durham police said last week that they did not suspect Starmer of having broken any rules and in any case they did not take retrospective action on lockdown breaches. But that position has not quelled the sense of injustice felt by Johnson’s most committed supporters in government, among them Dorries and Wallace.

Dorries has tweeted seven times about developments in the story since Friday.

Campaigning in Worthing yesterday, Starmer accused Conservative MPs of “mudslinging” before Thursday’s local elections. “There was no party, no breach of the rules,” he said. “This is a few days from the election. I know what’s going on here — the Tories are desperately trying to talk about anything other than the cost of living, chucking as much mud as possible. If they spent as much energy and as much focus on people’s bills and the tax that they’re whacking people for then millions of people would be actually grateful for that.

“So I think this is classic — two or three days before the election — mudslinging from the Tories. But I’ve got nothing to add.”

At the weekend Starmer faced awkward questions after it emerged that Rayner, his deputy, had also been present in the offices of the local Labour MP despite the party initially saying that she had not been. Starmer told Sky News: “We are a busy office. We made a mistake. It was a genuine mistake and I take responsibility for it — I run the office. We simply made a mistake. I don’t think anybody would seriously say Keir Starmer’s team lied to the media about this.”

What did Starmer do in Durham and why are we talking about it?
On April 30, 2021, a Friday, he was campaigning in the northeast of England for the Hartlepool by-election and council elections (Henry Zeffman writes).

In a video filmed by two students through a window, Starmer was seen drinking beer in the office of Mary Foy, the Labour MP for City of Durham. A few party workers were also present. Pictures were published that weekend by The Sun on Sunday, but there was minimal political impact.

What were the rules at the time?
England was in step two of the release from lockdown. Gathering indoors with people from outside your household or support bubble was against the law. There was an exemption for work purposes, although the rules did not allow for socialising at work.

Starmer says that he was drinking beer with a takeaway just before returning to work. Durham police reviewed the video in February after it resurfaced in the Daily Mail and said it did not believe an offence had been committed.

What has changed?
It emerged recently that the Durham Labour Party held a “quiz and social” on the same night. Labour says this was online and Starmer did not take part. It has also emerged that Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, was present in the offices even though Labour said for months that she was not.

However, what has really changed for the Conservatives is the political and policing context. Many of Boris Johnson’s MPs think it is not fair that the Metropolitan Police fined Johnson and Rishi Sunak for his birthday gathering in the cabinet room in April 2020 if Durham police do not believe Starmer’s event was an offence. Labour would argue that there is no comparison between the dozen events in Downing Street and Whitehall and one event in Durham.