Daily Mail

And they fined PM for birthday where no cake was eaten

- By Martin Beckford

BORIS Johnson was eating salad at his desk and Rishi Sunak wandered into the room because he had been invited to a crucial meeting about Covid.

But because a handful of Downing Street staff also popped in to wish the Prime Minister a happy birthday, both he and the Chancellor ended up being fined for breaking lockdown laws that at the time banned gatherings indoors.

The event, in the unlikely

Lager was left untouched

surroundin­gs of the No 10 Cabinet Room, took place on the afternoon of June 19, 2020, the day the Prime Minister turned 56.

It is believed to have lasted only nine minutes.

His then fiancee Carrie Symonds organised the impromptu celebratio­n, which took place just two months after he left intensive care following his brush with death, and attended with their newborn son, Wilf, in her arms. She has also been fined.

Their interior designer Lulu Lytle is believed to have been present as she was carrying out renovation­s on the flat above No 11 at the time, as was top civil servant Simon Case.

It was initially believed that Mr Johnson had been presented with a Union Jack cake while aides sang Happy Birthday to him.

But it has since been claimed that the cake, bought by a special adviser, never even left its Tupperware box.

Some sausage rolls from Marks and Spencer were laid out on the Cabinet table along with a few cans of Estrella lager, but it is believed that these were left untouched.

Downing Street has said that staff ‘gathered briefly’ to ‘wish the Prime Minister a happy birthday’ and that Mr Johnson had been present ‘for less than ten minutes’.

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