Will Durham Police be retrospectively investigating Dominic Cummings now too?

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Double jeopardy and double standards seem both to be at work here (Getty)

Morally and politically Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have done the right thing in promising to resign if found to have attended an illegal gathering during lockdown.

However, the person in the street may well see this whole story as an attempt by a desperate Conservative Party to smear a decent and hard-working politician.

Double jeopardy and double standards seem both to be at work here. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Durham Police has been pressured into this further action by outside forces.

It is also noteworthy that it took no action at all in the case of the much more egregious flouting of the law by Dominic Cummings.

A judge-led enquiry into the whole episode is clearly required.

Rev Andrew McLuskey

Ashford

Retrospective investigation

Now that Durham Police has decided that a retrospective investigation of Sir Keir Starmer is necessary, will they also retrospectively investigate Dominic Cummings?

Christopher Pastakia

Lossiemouth

Plenty of credible alternatives

Sean O’Grady may be right in his assertion that “losing Starmer would be great for the Labour Party”. Having realigned the party after the Corbyn years and made it marginally more electable, Starmer still lacks the leadership credibility to cut through to the bulk of the electorate.

For him to resign over a matter of principle and integrity would expose Johnson for the morally vacuous charlatan that he is, while clearing the way for a more charismatic Labour leader to capitalise on what Starmer has achieved.

As Sean O’Grady says, there are plenty of credible alternative candidates from which to choose; provided that those on the left of the party do not take the opportunity to resurrect their past failures.

If this course of action is taken, then it needs to happen smartly in order to avoid the perils of Johnson manipulating the situation to his own advantage by hastily calling another general election before a new Labour leader has established him or herself.

Graham Powell

Cirencester

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Nurtured and championed

While being generally sympathetic towards Penny Little’s comments on the treatment of Keir Starmer by the press in today’s correspondence, I would like to take issue with one aspect of her remarks. Her phrase “the Tory MPs and their lackeys in the press” would be more accurately stated as “the right-wing press and their lackeys in parliament”.

Mr Johnson himself, let us not forget, has been nurtured, financially supported and championed by the right-wing press. That didn’t happen by accident.

Nick Donnelly

Dorset

Extreme Brexit

The DUP voted for Brexit. They voted against Theresa May’s Brexit which would have avoided a border in the Irish Sea. They voted for Boris Johnson’s extreme Brexit.

Now they are complaining that they got what they voted for.

Jack Liebeskind

Cheltenham