Boris Johnson had a lockdown-busting birthday party in Downing Street in June 2020 at time when covid rules forbade social gatherings indoors, it has been reported.
In another shocking revelation of events in Downing Street, ITN News has discovered that up to 30 staff celebrated with the Prime Minister in the cabinet room where his wife, Carrie, surprised him with a cake.
It’s alleged that the Prime Minister’s wife helped organise a surprise get-together for him on the afternoon of 19 June just after 2pm.
In a bizarre twist ITV News has learnt that Lulu Lytle, who was involved in the controversial donor-funded redecoration of the Prime Minister’s flat at the time, also came down to the party even though she doesn’t work in Downing St.
The event lasted for almost half and hour and there are claims that family and friends continued to celebrate upstairs at the PM’s flat.
Downing Street confirmed the afternoon birthday party. In a statement they said: “A group of staff working in No 10 that day gathered briefly in the Cabinet Room after a meeting to wish the Prime Minister a happy birthday. He was there for less than ten minutes.”
Downing Street have denied that family friends were hosted upstairs in the prime minister’s residence in an apparent further breach of the rules, insisting he only hosted a small number of family members outside.
Nine days before the alleged birthday bash, on 10 June, Johnson at a Downing Street Covid press conference asked the public “to continue to show restraint and respect the rules which are designed to keep us all safe”2
On 13 June, 2020, six days before Boris Johnson’s birthday, the Queen watched a scaled back ceremony for her official birthday on her own, without family by her side.
Her Majesty viewed the annual Trooping the Colour parade from behind the walls of Windsor Castle, with none of it on public view, while the parade was conducted adhering to the strict two metre government guidelines on social distancing at the time.
The latest revelations come as senior civil servant, Sue Gray, finalises her report into allegations of multiple parties in Downing Street during the pandemic, which is expected to be published this week.
The internal inquiry has been ongoing since early December, when the prime minister announced an investigation following the leaking of video to ITV News of Downing Street staff joking about a Christmas party.
Keir Starmer said the birthday party heaped pressure on the Prime Minister to simply resign. The Labour leader said: “This is yet more evidence that we have got a Prime Minister who believes that the rules that he made don’t apply to him. “
"And so we have got a Prime Minister and a government who spend their whole time mopping up sleaze and deceit. “Meanwhile, millions of people are struggling to pay their bills.
"We cannot afford to go on with this chaotic, rudderless government. The Prime Minister is a national distraction and he’s got to go.”
The SNP's Westminster Leader Ian Blackford MP added to the calls for the PM to quit.
He said: "Boris Johnson's conduct has been a disgrace. It is clear the Prime Minister repeatedly broke the rules and lied about it. He is unfit for office and he has to go."
"Tory MPs must remove him without further delay. The longer they wait, the more damage they do to any remaining public trust in the UK government and broken Westminster system.
He added: "This is now a question of their own integrity. There simply cannot be one rule for the most powerful people in the Tory government and another for the rest of us. This has to end."
Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries was first out of the traps to offer a defence of the latest partygate allegations.
The Culture Secretary tweeted: “So, when people in an office buy a cake in the middle of the afternoon for someone else they are working in the office with and stop for ten minutes to sing happy birthday and then go back to their desks, this is now called a party?”
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