Speaking for the first time since police cleared Keir Starmer of lockdown breaches, City of Durham MP Mary Foy said she had been devastated by the media storm surrounding the meeting at her offices, where Starmer was pictured with a beer. She described how the teenage children of her staff had been summoned by journalists and members of her local party and accused of taking part in a lock-out party. “We had the papers on the phone every day, camped outside the office. A reporter managed to break into the office when the cleaner was coming to see if they could find things in our office,” Foy said. “There was a knock on my door at half past ten at night. They knocked on the door of a staff member’s 14 year old child in the middle of the day and made him very anxious. The parents of some staff members were on the threshold and were cold-hearted members of the CLP [constituency Labour party] to ask if he was at this so-called party.’ Foy was in the middle of the move when Starmer’s office called to say the Labor leader was planning to stop campaigning in Durham. She had three days’ notice, describing a house full of boxes and a rush to get everything ready in the midst of a local election. “I could do without it,” he said. “We made sure there was social distancing, it was three to a room, things like that… The picture you see is me and Keir and Angela, eating it standing up because it was so late, finishing up some work. and this is. This is not a party.” Foy said she had no particular reason to associate with Starmer. He is a member of the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, often at odds with Starmer’s leadership. “To be honest, I had only met Keir once before,” he said. “There was no way there was going to be a real conversation. Because we didn’t really know each other.” The story was first published in May 2021 after a video was taken by a local student of Starmer with a beer – with limited impact. But it was revived in December as Johnson came under pressure to party in Downing Street, with the prime minister using the story during PMQs. In January, Foy lost her mother and her father suffered a stroke. At the same time, the story was gaining traction. In the run-up to the local elections, it was covered extensively. Durham Police initially cleared Starmer of any wrongdoing in February. However, newspapers continued to report new developments, including the presence of deputy leader Angela Rayner, which Labor had initially denied. A memo was also leaked to the Mail on Sunday detailing plans for a curry as part of the visit. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Richard Holden, the MP for North West Durham, also wrote to Durham Police, saying he had uncovered new evidence. When police reopened their investigation in May, Starmer promised to resign if fined. Some of the new stuff Holden had delivered were ads for a local quiz party that night – but the invite makes it clear it was on Zoom. Foy had written underneath, “have a greasy night” – a term Holden claimed meant a drunken party. “It was unbelievable,” Foy said. “I type, ‘Sorry I can’t make it, have a great night.’” Apparently. No one in the Northeast I know used that word ‘fat’ [to mean drunken]. But as an MP would say, good drunken evening?’ Foy said one of the lasting legacies was the breakdown of the relationship between her and Tory Durham MPs, which she said could affect work in the local area. “I thought I was quite friendly with Richard Holden – we were all young together,” she said. “We were doing well with the plans to go up – what a farce that is – but we had to decide on some projects and we had issues to talk about. Obviously now it’s a working relationship that’s really broken.” Foy said her scars from the experience came mostly from how she was treated by the press and MPs, rather than voters, and said that was because few members of the public had bought into the idea that she and Starmers had done something wrong. “People are not stupid. They know there was no comparison. No matter how hard Tory MPs and the press tried to spin this story, people weren’t having it.”
