Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of breaking the ministerial code by making political remarks at a police HQ during the local election campaign.
The Prime Minister is said to have breached strict rules on the ‘purdah’ period before polling day by giving a speech to uniformed officers in which he hailed Labour’s achievements and criticised the last Tory government.
Now the Tories are urging the ministerial sleaze watchdog to investigate the PM, who previously vowed to clean up politics.
Under guidance published by the Cabinet Office in March, public bodies were warned to make sure that ‘public resources are not used for party political purposes’ ahead of this Thursday’s local elections and ‘not to undertake any activity that could call into question their political impartiality’.
The rules stated: ‘The general convention is that special care should be taken in the three weeks preceding the elections – from Thursday April 10.’
Yet on that very day Sir Keir and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper visited Cambridgeshire Police’s headquarters in Huntingdon.
Sir Keir gave a speech in front of dozens of uniformed officers in which he made several political remarks, including claiming that ‘under the last government... neighbourhood policing was decimated and it became a postcode lottery’.
Extracts from his remarks were then sent out to the media by Labour’s press office rather than by the politically neutral civil service.
The Conservatives claim prime minister Keir Starmer breached strict rules on the ‘purdah’ period before polling day by giving a speech to uniformed officers in Huntingdon (pictured) in which he hailed Labour’s achievements and criticised the Tory government
The Tories wrote to the force’s Chief Constable Nick Dean asking if he had been told it was a Government event or a political one. He replied: ‘Our understanding throughout was [it] was official routine government business’.
Yet when the Tories also asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald about the event, he said the exact opposite. He stated that it ‘was a political visit with no civil service support provided’.
Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake has now sent a letter to Sir Laurie Magnus, the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, saying: ‘Keir Starmer has serious questions to answer.
‘Taxpayer-funded resources, in government and in the police, have been abused by Labour ministers, in a crude attempt to garner votes for the Labour Party in the local elections. It would appear that “Mr Rules” believes they don’t apply to him.’
A Downing Street source said: ‘We were always clear with Cambridgeshire Police that as this visit fell in the pre-election period, it would be a political event, arranged and staffed by the political team.’