London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Jul 24, 2025

How media took nine months to leap on Starmer beer footage

How media took nine months to leap on Starmer beer footage

Analysis: Few outlets considered April 2021 event a story at the time. But then Partygate happened
If Keir Starmer is fined for a breach of lockdown rules, the person who would claim credit for bringing him down is the anti-lockdown campaigner Laurence Fox.

Fox, the former actor and leader of the niche Reclaim party, was the first person to widely share a 34-second grainy video showing the maskless Labour leader having a beer with one of his MPs after a day’s campaigning. In the background party activists can be seen eating curry, in what Labour has always insisted was a work environment.

The self-proclaimed vaccine sceptic – and ex-husband of Billie Piper – mockingly captioned his upload: “It would seem that the mask has already slipped for Keir Starmer. Don’t share widely. No one is perfect.”

The original footage was filmed on 30 April 2021 by a third-year student at the University of Durham. They anonymously told the student newspaper Palatinate that they happened to pass the building when they saw “something that I thought was an injustice and decided to film it because it made me angry”. The student said they felt Starmer was practising double standards but they were uncomfortable with recent coverage and “didn’t want to help Boris in any way”.

At that time, pubs and restaurants were legally allowed to serve groups of six people outdoors but most of the population was still under substantial restrictions on socialising and large indoor gatherings were banned.

The student shared the video with friends, and it was quickly forwarded to a wider audience, including anti-lockdown activists. Fox uploaded a copy at 8.42am the following morning to glee from his particular corner of anti-Labour, anti-lockdown Twitter.

Yet few mainstream outlets considered it a news story at the time, potentially because of Fox’s pariah status and the unclear provenance of the footage. The Sun on Sunday picked up on the clip and published a brief article on page 2 of its print edition – the traditional slot for political stories that are not expected to get widely read. Even fellow rightwing newspapers ignored it and the clip languished in relative obscurity for the rest of the year.

What changed was the rolling Partygate scandal that pre-occupied Westminster through December and January. Boris Johnson came under fire from his own MPs after it was alleged that officials at No 10 had been drinking and socialising throughout the darkest periods of the pandemic in 2020, while the rest of the country endured severe restrictions.

Starmer took a strong stance on Johnson’s rule-breaking, calling for the prime minister to resign when he was put under police investigation. At this point, some of the first outlets to revive interest in the old video were leftwing, anti-Starmer online news outlets such as Skwawkbox that had sprung up to support Jeremy Corbyn.

As the pressure mounted on Johnson, the Daily Mail put the Durham pictures on the front page of its 15 January print edition under the headline “Starmer the Covid party hypocrite”. But it was only after the prime minister and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, were fined last month for breaching lockdown rules in Downing Street that rightwing newspapers put their full weight behind the story.

Nine months after the video was first reported, the Daily Mail and the Sun began publishing a series of articles, tracking down the driver who delivered the curry to the Labour party office and pushing for Durham constabulary to open an investigation.

The police’s recent announcement means the media pressure is now likely to increase further, with the BBC and other broadcast outlets swinging behind a story they could previously dismiss as an ideologically driven attack, but that they now see as a more straightforward tale about an ongoing police investigation.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
×