Party hangover still a sorry affair for Boris
LONDON: Boris Johnson has been urged by ministers and Tory MPs to apologise for a party in the Downing Street garden during the first lockdown at which he is said to have “gladhanded” guests.
Mr Johnson and Carrie Symonds, his fiancee at the time and now his wife, are both said to have attended the event in May 2020 and mingled with 40 Downing Street officials and advisers as people drank wine, gin and beer.
The Times has been told that one member of the government at the party joked about being caught breaking
lockdown rules, asking how it would look if a drone photographed the garden.
At the time people in England could meet only one other person outside and large gatherings were banned.
The party, which was organised by Martin Reynolds, Mr Johnson’s most senior official, led to a backlash from cabinet ministers and more than a dozen Tory MPs, with many of them openly questioning Mr Johnson’s future.
It leaves the Prime Minister’s reputation in the hands of Sue Gray, a senior civil servant who has been charged by him with examining allegations of lockdown parties in Downing Street. She is investigating seven events, and is not due to report until the end of next week at the earliest.
Mr Johnson has repeatedly refused to say whether he attended the event and referred all questions to Gray’s inquiry, a position which will be put under further strain as he attends Prime Minister’s questions. One person who attended said they had seen Mr Johnson “wandering round gladhanding people”.
A cabinet minister said: “It’s not terminal yet – there’s still room for humility and a heartfelt apology. But we’re f..ked unless we resolve it.
“Everyone knows this thing happened; nobody is disputing that. The row has moved on from whether the party took place to questions around denial and prevarication. PMQs will be agonising.
“We f..ked up but it doesn’t have to be terminal.”
Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, went further and said that Mr Johnson must resign as PM if he attended the party. He describing the event as “utterly despicable”.
“You cannot put in place these rules, you cannot be the head of the government that is asking people to follow these rules, and then break those rules yourself,” he said.