‘UK PM’s wine and cheese gathering was not a party’

LONDON: A photograph of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and more than a dozen other people drinking wine in the garden of his Downing Street residence during a lockdown last year does not show a party, his deputy said on Monday.

The picture, published by the Guardian, shows Johnson with his wife Carrie, who appears to be holding their newborn son, and two other people at a table on a terrace in the Downing Street garden with cheese and wine.

Nearby is another table of four other people, and a short distance away are a larger group standing on the grass around a table with bottles of wine.

“Downing Street use that garden as a place of work,” Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio. “That’s not against the regulations.”

“I genuinely don’t think it gets classified as a party,” Raab said. “I don’t think it was a party.”

The scenes depicted in the photograph add to the scrutiny on Johnson following revelations that his staff held a series of gatherings during Covid-19 lockdowns while the population was being told not to mix with others.

He has faced a barrage of criticism since a video emerged showing his staff laughing and joking about a Downing Street party during a 2020 Christmas lockdown when such festivities were banned.

Raab said the new photograph was taken on a day when the government had just held news conference and that sometimes staff had a drink after a long day in the garden. It was a work gathering, he said.

Johnson’s wife Carrie, Raab said, had popped down from the Downing Street flat to spend some time with her husband.