Starmer’s beergate woes show why we need a lockdown amnesty

Do you really care that Keir Starmer had a curry and a beer while working late in April last year? Be honest. Does the image of Sir Keir tucking into a masala with colleagues keep you up at night? Do you find yourself distracted from the cost-of-living crisis by visions of Starmer having a San Miguel? Would you like to find out more about what’s happening in Ukraine but you can’t, because your mind keeps getting dragged back to that shocking grainy photo of the Leader of the Opposition holding a bottle of beer?

Look, I get it about the hypocrisy. I get it that Starmer bored us all rigid – well, me anyway – with incessant questions about that ten-minute birthday party at Downing Street. I know that having madly talked up the government’s shindigs during lockdown as proof of ‘widespread criminality’ at the heart of political power Starmer cannot now feign shock that his Indian is being splashed all over the front pages.