Keir Starmer Curry Questions Take Partygate Heat Off Johnson

(Bloomberg) --

Boris Johnson's premiership has been destabilized for months over a lockdown law-breaking birthday cake at the height of the U.K. pandemic, but the heat is now on his political rival over a take-out curry and beer with aides.

Labour Leader Keir Starmer has faced a barrage of criticism by Johnson's Tories and in the British press for a photo dating from April 2021 when the nation was still under coronavirus restrictions. The image shows Starmer in Durham, northern England, holding a bottle of beer, with people behind him eating from plates of food as the party campaigned for an election in nearby Hartlepool.

While Starmer has dismissed the image as showing a short break from campaign work to grab a meal, Johnson's Conservatives say it is comparable to the birthday gathering on June 19, 2020 that the prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak were fined for after police found they broke the lockdown rules set by their own government. The Tories accuse Starmer, who has called on both men to resign, of hypocrisy, and are pushing for the police to investigate again whether he also broke the law.

The issue matters because the U.K. is holding a set of regional elections on Thursday. While the focus of those should be on local issues, over the past week, Starmer's curry and beer has increasingly dominated headlines and interviews in a key period of campaigning. The Conservative-supporting Daily Mail newspaper has highlighted questions it says Starmer needs to answer over the last seven days. On Wednesday The Sun newspaper said the order was for around 200 pounds ($250), claiming that would buy curry for 30 people.

That's provided some respite to Johnson and his Conservative strategists, helping dilute voter anger at his own law-breaking and rebuild morale among Tory members of Parliament.

Even though the food was eaten at about 10 p.m. on a Friday, Starmer says it was a brief takeout between work meetings. The rules at the time stated that indoor gatherings were only legal if “reasonably necessary” for a campaign. Starmer says that as restaurants were closed, it was the only way of eating.

“We were there working,” Starmer told the Good Morning Britain program on Wednesday, adding he was doing “pieces to camera” and “clearing documents” when the takeout was ordered. The police have not been in touch and have issued a statement saying they will not be re-investigating the matter, he added.