Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has tried to claim a birthday celebration for the PM was not a party as he offered up a string of excuses for Boris Johnson's latest bash.
Mr Shapps was given the unenviable task of defending the Prime Minister on the airwaves this morning after it emerged Mr Johnson enjoyed a birthday celebration in Downing Street during the first lockdown.
More than 30 officials gathered in the Cabinet room for a surprise birthday party for the PM on June 19 2020, it has been claimed.
Guests sang 'Happy Birthday' to the PM, who was presented with a cake, before they tucked into picnic food from M&S, according to ITV.
Indoor gatherings were banned at the time, with only six people allowed to meet outside.
Interior designer Lulu Lytle - who was working on the lavish revamp of the PM's flat - admitted attending but insisted she was only present "briefly" while waiting to talk to Mr Johnson.
Downing Street admitted an event took place but said Mr Johnson was only there for "less than 10 minutes".
A No 10 spokesperson 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 10 minutes."
Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray is investigating a slew of allegations of lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street and Whitehall, with her report expected any day.
Grant Shapps said she knew about the event, saying: "Sue Gray is aware of a birthday cake being given to the Prime Minister."
Mr Shapps, who was unable to visit his father in hospital during the pandemic, said he was "furious" with lockdown rule breakers and he understood public anger.
But he also provided a string of increasingly bizarre defences of what happened.
The gathering involved staff already working together
Mr Shapps' key defence was that those attending the party were all working together in No 10 already.
He told Sky News: "It was his (Boris Johnson's) birthday and these are people that he worked with all the time.
"As I said, I don't seek to defend it. This is for Sue Gray to decide on whether this was appropriate, she'll make the recommendations.
He told LBC that he shared "people's sense of upset whenever we hear about things which may have transgressed any of the rules".
But added: "I understand that this group of people in the Prime Minister's own office who he's working with every day, they had to be in the office through that period."
The public won't consider it a party
The top Tory also claimed that the public would not consider the event as a party.
Mr Shapps told BBC Breakfast: "I think most people would think of a party as being an arranged event rather than something where on somebody's birthday in the office that they work in with the people that they always work with, someone says 'it's your birthday here's a cake'.
"But that is for Sue Gray to get to the bottom of, I do agree and understand why - not least from my own personal experience - this would cause upset."
Boris Johnson didn't present a cake to himself
Mr Shapps tried to claim the Prime Minister couldn't be to blame for attending the event as he didn't organise it himself.
"I think we can be pretty clear that the Prime Minister didn't present the cake to himself," he said.
"This is somebody coming in with that cake and I've explained to you that I'm furious with everybody who broke the rules."
He said lots of people may have "unwittingly transgressed the rules during lockdowns" and it was right for the PM to apologise where he had transgressed the rules.
'No one is perfect'
Mr Shapps said he still had confidence in Boris Johnson.
He said the Prime Minister had achieved successes with the vaccine rollout and Brexit, but he added: "No one is perfect."
He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "Look, as the Prime Minister's said, where mistakes were made, even though it wasn't... I mean, he would have turned up and the cake would have been there.
"He didn't know about it, and it clearly shouldn't happen."
