Boris apologises for No.10 party

PRIME MINISTER AGAIN FACES CALLS TO RESIGN

BORIS Johnson apologised for attending a “bring your own booze” gathering in the garden of No.10 during England’s first lockdown although he insisted he believed it had been a “work event”.

The Prime Minister acknowledged the public “rage” over the incident as he battled to save his premiership, with Downing Street insisting he was never sent an e-mail inviting people to “socially-distanced drinks” in the garden.

Mr Johnson told MPS that he attended the May 20 2020 gathering for around 25 minutes to “thank groups of staff”.

The admission that he attended the event led to calls for him to resign from leading opposition figures, while Tory MPS also acknowledged the end may be in sight for his premiership.

The Prime Minister acknowledged public anger, saying: “I know the rage they feel with me and with the government I lead when they think in Downing Street itself the rules are not being properly followed by the people who make the rules.”

He said an inquiry was examining the situation but he had “learned enough to know there were things we simply did not get right and I must take responsibility”.

Downing Street refused to say whether his then fiancee Carrie Symonds had attended the gathering, if Mr Johnson had noticed tables laden with food and drink or if he had brought a bottle of his own into the garden.

All such questions were a matter for senior official Sue Gray’s inquiry, the Prime Minister’s press secretary told reporters.

At just after 6pm on the day of the event, the time the invitation had specified for people to gather to “make the most of the lovely weather”, Mr Johnson said he went into the garden to thank staff for their efforts and stayed for 25 minutes. I believed implicitly that this was a work event,” he said.

“With hindsight I should have sent everyone back inside. I should have found some other way to thank them. I should have recognised that even if it could be said technically to fall within the guidance, there are millions and millions of people who simply would not see it that way, people who have suffered terribly, people who were forbidden for meeting loved ones at all inside or outside, and to them and to this House I offer my heartfelt apologies.”

Mr Johnson’s press secretary insisted that he was not a liar and “he is not resigning”.

Veteran Tory MP Sir Roger Gale said it was already clear that Mr Johnson misled Parliament and that politically he was a “dead man walking” and it was either up to him to quit or be forced out by the backbench Conservative 1922 Committee.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on the Prime Minister to resign.

“After months of deceit and deception, the pathetic spectacle of a man who has run out of road,” Sir Keir said. His defence ... that he didn’t realise he was at a party is so ridiculous that it’s actually offensive to the British public.”

Away from Westminster, Mr Johnson has been accused of pouring salt into people’s wounds after his apology.

Hannah Brady, from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said that if Mr Johnson does not step down then his MPS have a “moral duty” to remove him.

Ms Brady’s father, Shaun Brady, 55, died just a few days before the event on May 20 2020, having contracted Covid on the way to his job as a key worker in Wigan.

Ms Brady said: “The Prime Minister’s lies havecaught up with him. Not content with kicking bereaved families like mine in the teeth by breaking the rules he set and then lying to us about it, he’s now taking the public for fools by pretending he ‘didn’t know it was a party.’”