Beergate is cheap and cynical – and everyone knows it

Had this column been written last week, it would have started with something along the lines of: Beergate matters, but not for the reasons you think. The thesis I’d begun to assemble in my head went a bit like this: The Daily Mail and The Sun, two of the highest-selling newspapers in the country, have been screaming about Keir Starmer’s korma secret for days and still, no one cares.

I am not here to say whether the public should or should not care about his potential rule-breaking, I would have written, merely to point out that the increasing lack of influence of the press on public discourse is striking.

Has a new dawn broken? As it turns out, it has not. Durham Police has since reopened its investigation into the curry Starmer and his team had during one of the lockdowns and, according to YouGov, 54 per cent of Britons believe that he “definitely” or “probably” broke the rules.

In even worse news for the Labour leader, 46 per cent of people think he should resign if fined by the police, with only 32 per cent thinking that he should not. In short: I came very close to calling it entirely wrong. I thought the story would disappear without a trace and well, it certainly has not. In case you are wondering why I would selflessly fess up to this now, I can explain: my conclusion was wrong, but I stand by my assessments of the facts.

Beergate is cheap and undignified, and everyone knows it. The papers who pushed the story because they dislike the Labour Party know this. The MPs and pundits who pushed the story even further because they want the Conservatives to look a bit less bad by comparison know this. It’s flimsy; it’s cynical.

Of course there is a difference between having multiple raucous parties involving suitcases of booze and a broken swing, and eating a takeaway in a room after a day’s work. Of course it matters that these parties were happening in the very heart of government, under the nose of the man who went on television every day to remind us to obey the rules.

Starmer may well have signed his own death warrant by calling for Rishi Sunak to resign after being fined for one minor breach, but that does not change the facts. The Labour and Conservative leaderships did not behave in the same way during the pandemic; it is mortifying that so many people seem ready to argue or at least imply that they did.

Perhaps it will work; it is entirely possible that Durham police will issue a fixed penalty notice and that Starmer will have to resign as a result. I am not sure that would be good news for Boris Johnson; the opposition would lose a leader no one is passionately fond of, and would gain a new attack line against a prime minister who refused to do the honourable thing.

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

It is also possible that Starmer will not be fined, and that attention will once again return to Partygate as the Sue Gray report is published, with Labour able to take the high ground. That would not be good news either. Finally, it is possible that Starmer will not be fined but receive a slap on the wrist, which is, one assumes, the scenario those behind Beergate are hoping for the most. The leader would remain in place but be tainted as a fellow rule-breaker, able to stay but only because of a technicality.

The waters would be muddied, and the feeling that they are all the same and they are all at it will give Johnson cover for his own poor behaviour. Still, even if that does happen, is this really how politics ought to be conducted? Must wrongdoing be followed not by sincere apologies but by increasingly desperate attempts to bring others down to your level?

I was wrong to very nearly predict that Beergate would not matter, but that is because I foolishly expected better of the political sphere. I just did not think such blatant and blatantly insincere cynicism would work but well, maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. Worse, still: maybe it already has. How depressing is that?