Is it one rule for Sky News, another for everyone else?

Kay Burley is hardly what you would call a ‘sympathetic personality’ – but Steerpike is a magnanimous sort and he can’t help feeling a little sorry for her on this chilly winter’s morning.

The poor presenter is having a miserable time because, having spent much of the year berating others for their failings vis Covid, she has been caught breaching the stop-the-spread rules herself in order to celebrate her 60th birthday.

Who doesn’t deserve a little bit of a dinner out — or two — to celebrate becoming a sexagenarian (her special day is actually on December 17th, but hey who’s counting)? The trouble is Kay and her pals, including Sky’s equally amiable political editor Beth Rigby and former senior news editor turned Huawei ‘head of media’ Paul ‘5G’ Harrison, got a little carried away. After eating in one restaurant in Soho, some of the party apparently visited another — before going back to a Kay’s for a knees-up.