By Keir Starmer says drinks with staff did not break Covid rules
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said a picture of him drinking with a number of party staff in a constituency office last year was ‘no breach of the rules’ and that there was ‘no comparrison’ to the Prime Minister.
When asked on BBC’s Sunday Morning Programme about the picture which emerged last spring in the Daily Mail Sir Keir 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.”
The image shows Sir Keir drinking a bottle of beer and standing close to two people while another pair can be seen in the background.
It was taken several days before the Hartlepool by-election through the window of a building in Durham.
At the time the country was in step two of the third lockdown, and indoor mixing between different households was not allowed except for work.
The Labour leader 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.”
When asked about the possibility of government lifting Plan B measures he said: “I hope those restrictions can be lifted as soon as possible, but I want them to be lifted because the medical science says they should be lifted, not simply because the Prime Minister is in a real mess and he’s desperately trying to get out of it.
“So, if it’s the right thing to lift those restrictions, we will vote to lift those restrictions. But we’ll be led by the science as we always have been, not by the politics of propping up a broken Prime Minister.”
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