LONDON'S police force has responded to calls for a probe into whether Covid laws were broken by Keir Starmer's voice coach.
Downing Street has defended communication skills specialist Leonie Mellinger – who is accused of breaching lockdown laws in order to teach the now-Prime Minister – calling her a “core part of a small team”.
Labour are under fire after it emerged that Mellinger joined both Starmer and now-Chancellor Rachel Reeves in 2020 to help them prepare for Covid-era statements and press conferences.
Number 10 would not be drawn on how many times they met or how many people were present, but said Starmer believed it was not reasonably possible for Mellinger to carry out her job from home.
“She was a core part of a small team,” the Prime Minister’s press secretary told reporters on Wednesday.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, said on social media that the excuse would “not wash, and likely won’t go away either”.
However, a Met Police spokesperson said they would not be investigating the allegations of law-breaking.
“We can confirm we have received a report,” they said. "The specific legislation that would be used by police forces dealing with alleged offences during Covid has a three-year deadline for initiating proceedings.
"As this alleged incident falls outside of this timeframe, no action will be taken."
At PMQs on Wednesday, Starmer hit back at opposition attacks about his meeting with Mellinger.
“In December 2020, I was in my office working on the expected Brexit deal,” he said.
“With my team we had to analyse the deal as it came in at speed, prepare and deliver a live statement at speed on one of the most important issues for our country in recent years.
“That’s what I was doing. What were they doing?
“Suitcases of food into Downing Street, partying and fighting, vomiting up the walls, leaving the cleaner to remove red wine stains. That’s the difference – I was working, they were partying.”
In excerpts of Get In, a book about Starmer’s leadership being serialised by The Times newspapers, Mellinger is described as having qualified for “key worker” status.
She also wore a face mask during the meeting at Labour Party headquarters on Christmas Eve in 2020, according to the book by political journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.
But opposition critics have seized on the revelation as evidence of what they suggest amounts to a potential breach of lockdown rules, as London and the south east were under regional restrictions at the time.
A spokesperson for Kemi Badenoch said: “The key question here is: is a voice coach a key worker who can travel from Tier 4 to Tier 3 during lockdown?
“It doesn’t matter if you’re part of a core team, that is the question. Now, Keir Starmer said that lawmakers can’t be lawbreakers.
“It is almost unimaginable to disagree that that was a clear breach of the Covid rules.”
Asked if Badenoch thought police should investigate, he said: “Yes, she does.”
The spokesperson said Mellinger was accused of breaking the law, rather than Starmer, but claimed the comment about lawmakers not being lawbreakers applied to the Prime Minister “by proxy”.
