How media took nine months to leap on Starmer beer footage

Analysis: Few outlets considered April 2021 event a story at the time, but then Partygate happened

If Keir Starmer is fined for a breach of lockdown rules, the person who would claim credit for bringing him down is the anti-lockdown campaigner Laurence Fox.

Fox, the former actor and leader of the niche Reform party, was the first person to widely share a 34-second grainy video showing the maskless Labour leader having a beer with one of his MPs after a day's campaigning. In the background party activists can be seen eating curry, in what Labour has always insisted was a work environment.