Durham Police have announced they’ll take no further action over the infamous video of Keir Starmer drinking beer last April, and claim to have determined no laws were broken. Despite government guidance explicitly saying his presence in the building was not permitted under Covid campaign laws…

A Durham police spokesman has said “we have reviewed the case”:

“We have determined that no laws were broken and no further action will be taken in this matter.”

Sir Keir’s defence of the photo has been:

“I was in a constituency office days before the election, we were very busy, we were working, at some time some food turned up.

“We stopped, we had our food and then we carried on working. That is not a breach of the rules, it’s not a party and it’s no comparison to the Prime Minister.”

However according to rules at the time, campaigners were told “you should not meet with other campaigners indoors… only rarely will two people be required indoors at the same location to manage bulk delivery handling”, rules which remained in place after the step 1 unlocking on March 29. Campaign rooms, referred to by government guidance as “committee rooms”, “should be functional and not social. For example, a campaigner would only enter inside the building to meet the committee room organiser in order to collect election literature or drop off telling slips”. Guido imagines Downing Street will be relieved, however, that the police believe bottles of beer could be drunk in offices during lockdown…