The prime minister didn’t just go to a lockdown party, he led the celebration, it’s been claimed.
Boris Johnson became the first sitting British Prime Minister to have been found to have broken the law as he was fined for going to his own birthday party in June 2020.
But a new report now alleges his spin doctor Lee Cain’s leaving do on November 13, 2020 didn’t feel like a leaving party until the Tory leader himself turned up.
‘This wasn’t a leaving drinks’, one source said – until Mr Johnson arrived.
‘This was the usual press office Friday evening wash-up drinks’, they said. ‘Boris came fumbling over, red box in tow, and he gathered the staff around the press office table, which did have bottles of alcohol on it.
‘He said he wanted to say a few words for Lee and started pouring drinks for people and drinking himself.’
A second national lockdown was in force at the time and indoor gatherings with other households were banned – unless for work.
A similar account was also shared with The Guardian, with an insider claiming staff ‘felt obliged to join in when Mr Johnson encouraged them’.
A Number 10 source denied claims Mr Johnson was the instigator but did not argue with the characterisation of the party.
The worst partygate photos are yet to surface after the PM was pictured at his birthday gathering by his official photographer, according to The Sunday Times.
A source ‘who has seen pictures of one gathering at Downing Street’ has claimed there were ‘people around the table, and there was loads of alcohol’.
‘If you put that picture on the front pages, I think a lot of people, MPs, who have priced a lot of stuff in will not have priced that in, because it looks like a massive piss-up’, they added.
The PM is rumoured to be facing at least three more fines for partying while others stayed away from loved ones and watched funerals on Zoom.
Responding to the fresh report, Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has claimed British people ‘deserve better’.
‘If true, this means he not only attended the parties, but was a ringleader of at least one’, she tweeted.
‘Boris Johnson has deliberately misled the public at every turn. This Prime Minister has demeaned his office. The British people deserve better.’
Downing Street has declined to comment on the alleged gatherings until a police investigation has come to an end.
But in December last year, Mr Johnson denied there was a party on 13 November.
Responding to a direct question from Labour MP Catherine West, he replied: ‘No, but I am sure that whatever happened, the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times.’
The PM is preparing to defend his premiership once again as MPs return to Westminster following the Easter recess.
For his first Commons appearance since being fined, he is believed to be planning a statement insisting there are bigger issues to focus on than the partygate saga.
He is likely to focus on Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis, and a trip to India which will focus on defence and trade.
Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has indicated the defence Mr Johnson may reach for on Sunday.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend programme, he said: ‘I think that when you hear what happened on the party for which he has been fined, many people would think that they were in accordance with the rules, when they were meeting people they were with every day, who happened to wish them a happy birthday, because that was the day it was.
‘I think that was a perfectly rational thing to believe. Now the police have decided otherwise and the police have an authority. But he wasn’t thinking something irrational or unreasonable, that that was within the rules.’
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