A potentially ending career video for Keira Starmer drinking beer in Durham was shot by Ivo Delingpol, the student son of Breitbart writer James Delingpol.
Delingpol, who graduated from the University of Durham last year, was at his student dormitory in the city, near the site where the Labor leader held a political campaign event on April 30, 2021.
According to people familiar with the video, Delingpol is the one who spotted the Labor leader through the window of Durham Miners Hall. Starmer drank with a team of activists who ate curry at home at a time when the country was still partially blocked and large indoor social gatherings were banned.
The short video was later passed on to anti-blocking activist Lawrence Fox, who tweeted it to his followers.
The mainstream media largely ignored the footage for nine months, but as public outrage over Downing Street parties escalated in the winter, the Daily Mail put Starmer’s video on the front page in January and accused the Labor leader of hypocrisy.
The paper, along with Sun and the Telegraph, has since launched a concerted campaign to investigate the video, leading to a statement from Durham police that forces will launch an investigation into whether Starmer and his colleagues violated the blocking rules.
Ivo Delingpole could not be reached for comment, but his father confirmed that he was the man who took the pictures. Ivo insisted in anonymous interviews with the student newspaper Pfalz that he did not want the footage to be used as an excuse for breaking the rules by Boris Johnson and that his decision to shoot was not politically motivated.
James Delingpole was a contemporary of Johnson at Oxford University in the 1980s. He has written for the right-wing Breitbart and other publications such as the Spectator and the Telegraph. He hosted a live edition of his podcast last month featuring a number of anti-blocking activists, including Fox.
When Starmer’s video first circulated last April, he tweeted about it, without mentioning that his son had filmed it. “Literally no one would care if Keir Starmer broke the mask / social distancing rules if it weren’t for the fact that he insisted on them even more than the government. These are grotesque double standards. How is this point not obvious? “He wrote.
Starmer said Monday that he would resign as Labor leader if Durham police fined him for the incident, insisting he had acted within the law.
Keir Starmer says he will resign if fined for allegedly violating Covid rules – video
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