Sir Keir Starmer’s Beergate defence sunk faster than a bottle of San Miguel

Keir unclear

IF Keir Starmer is truly “Mr Rules”, truly a man of unimpeachable integrity, why has his Beergate defence been sunk faster than a bottle of San Miguel?

Why does his story keep changing, like that of the shiftiest defendant in a tight spot?

Labour’s leader made out the boozy Durham curry was a spontaneous “work event”. But it was planned long in advance, and beers bought for him.

Labour insisted no other food was available. It was.

They said it was a legitimate “break” and they went back to work afterwards. There appears no evidence Starmer did.

For him it looks like merely an after-work Friday night social function, in breach of lockdown rules he has declared sacred.

Starmer initially said only six people were there. He now admits it was more than double that.

Labour claimed Angela Rayner wasn’t among them. She was. And she is being probed too, as are up to 20 in all.

Starmer’s fans contort themselves to explain why these discrepancies are totally understandable — allowing him leeway they would never grant anyone in Downing Street (even Rishi Sunak, fined merely for singing Happy Birthday).

To ordinary people they look like excuses from a party terrified its leader is in big trouble.

It wouldn’t much matter had Starmer not spent months standing in pious judgement over his opponents . . . if he hadn’t said similar lockdown breaches by Tories were a sacking offence.

Mr Rules must be judged by those same rules.

And, despite all the pressure he has put on them, Durham police must not falter.

Rotten culture

THE stench of decay in Whitehall is rank.

Its dismal work ethic was already on life support but Covid has destroyed it.

How else could the DWP allow only 27 per cent of staff to return to the office after their work-from-home jolly? How could a culture evolve in which no one bats an eyelid over a “motivational” seminar about sex toys — in work time?

The public would have been paying DWP staff to be titillated even as the backlog of benefit cases exploded. It was axed only after The Sun found out.

How many other such abuses secretly go on across the vast bloat of the civil service?

Fare-y Queen

THE Queen’s surprise star-turn to open the Tube’s Elizabeth Line is just the ticket for a nation worried about her health.

And didn’t she look radiant?

Many were fretting over whether she would be up to her historic Jubilee appearances after she handed the State Opening of Parliament over to Charles.

Looks like she’s back on track.