After a press conference at Nato headquarters in Brussels tonight the PM was asked if the sessions were a breach of lockdown rules, replying: ‘Of course not.’

Keir Starmer sought the help of voice coach Leonie Mellinger to respond to Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal

Tory former cabinet minister Richard Holden has written to the PM demanding he explain why the lessons were in line with the rules.

Tory former cabinet minister Richard Holden has written to the PM demanding he explain why the lessons were in line with the rules.

‘We all know that Sir Keir has that strange nasal, adenoidal, issue with his voice, so he may have considered it very important, whether or not the country did when they were all locked down is the question at the heart of the matter here,’ he told GB News.

‘I don’t think … acting classes were essential – we didn’t either, as a country, because we basically stopped those in-person university courses across the piste as well.

‘It is also quite clear that at the time the Labour Party didn’t think so, because they had had virtual meetings with her, they are mentioned in this book as well.’

Get In, by journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, claims classically trained dramatist Ms Mellinger advised the Prime Minister on his speaking style.

Excerpts of the book published in the Sunday Times said she qualified for ‘key worker’ status and visited Labour Party headquarters wearing a face mask in December 2020, to advise Sir Keir on how to publicly respond to the Brexit deal.

A Labour spokesman said: ‘The rules were followed.’

Ms Mellinger was recruited to work with Sir Keir on improving his public speaking in 2017, when he was serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

Mr Holden has previously raised questions about the Prime Minister’s conduct during lockdown, including Sir Keir’s attendance at a Labour Party meeting in Durham in April 2021, as he joined a local election campaign.

A police investigation, dubbed Beergate, found neither Sir Keir nor his deputy Angela Rayner breached Covid rules.

Mr Holden, the MP for Basildon and Billericay, also asked whether Sir Keir would now appoint an independent investigator to clear up the claims about the voice coach.

In his letter he said: ‘Do you think it would be right for other members of the public to get acting lessons during tier 4 restrictions?’

Sir Keir praised key workers in a message shared on social media the same day he met the voice coach

In his letter he said: ‘Do you think it would be right for other members of the public to get acting lessons during tier 4 restrictions?’

Signing off the letter, the Tory MP added: ‘There is a strong public interest into your conduct during the pandemic and it is clear from these revelations that not only have you misled the public but you had a casual disregard for the law at a time when so many people were making such difficult sacrifices all in the service of advancing your own political career.

‘You have said ‘honesty and decency matters’ – I hope you will treat these questions to you with the same standards you asked of others.’

Elsewhere in excerpts of the book, Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is said to have described his principal as ‘like an HR manager, not a leader’.

Mr McSweeney is claimed to have voiced fears in private that the Prime Minister ‘might be too timid’, but also described Sir Keir as ‘very bright’ and ‘not completely unpolitical’.

Another unnamed ally is claimed to have said Sir Keir was not ‘driving the train’ but sitting at the front of an automatically driven one, akin to London’s Docklands Light Railway.

One of the Prime Minister’s most senior ministers, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper dismissed the claims.

She told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: ‘I think what you see with Keir Starmer is a real determination to change the country.

‘It’s why he set out the plan for change with clear action, clear things that he’s determined to change across the country.’