Keir Starmer would have seen off law-breaker Boris Johnson – if he hadn’t already gone

Keir Starmer has scored a decisive victory against Boris Johnson – the day after the prime minister resigned. The Labour leader took a calculated risk in promising to stand down if he were fined for lockdown rule-breaking. Now he has been vindicated – too late, because the lockdown law-breaker had already defeated himself.

We can observe that Starmer would not have made that pledge unless he was confident that he would not be served with a penalty notice, but it was undoubtedly a risk; he took it, and he won the gamble. The Durham constabulary has concluded that the gathering in the Miners’ Hall in April last year was lawful “due to the application of an exception, namely reasonably necessary work”.

So if Johnson were still clinging to office, Starmer would have a huge advantage at next week’s Prime Minister’s Questions. He would have been advised not to milk it himself – no one likes someone who proclaims their own moral virtue – but others could have pointed it out for him, and he could have asked about crime and mentioned the rule of law.