Keir Starmer has tried to head off accusations that he broke lockdown rules during the pandemic, offering an impromptu statement to journalists today (9 May) that was broadcast live on BBC News, Sky News and BBC 5 Live. “We shouldn’t be dragged down by this cynical belief that all politicians are the same,” the Labour leader told Sky’s Beth Rigby — and the parts of the nation paying attention. “We are not all the same, and I have set out today how I am different.”
But did he? Starmer’s statement and the brief Q&A that followed — in which the Labour leader announced that he would resign if Durham police retrospectively fine him for breaking lockdown rules — lasted for less than ten minutes, which seems brief given the problem Starmer faces.
That problem is not so much whether he gets fined as whether the public believe that he, like Boris Johnson, broke lockdown rules. He can be cleared by the police, as his team expect him to be, but still be undermined by this story. That is Starmer’s real problem, and polling data published this morning shows that it is a serious one.
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