Over the past 10 days, Boris Johnson has faced the most hostile set of headlines since becoming prime minister, starting with the Daily Mirror on 1 December: “Boris Party Broke Covid Rules.”
The story wouldn’t go away, because the prime minister was unable to provide a satisfactory account of a “gathering for work purposes” in Downing Street on 18 December last year, which sounded very much like a Christmas party, which was against the rules at the time.
And then on Tuesday ITV News published a leaked video of a practice news conference on 22 December last year, in which Allegra Stratton, who was then the prime minister’s spokesperson, proved unable to answer questions about a party that had happened four days earlier.
At Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons on Wednesday, Johnson said he shared people’s anger at the video, and apologised for the impression it gave off his staff “seeming to make light of lockdown measures”.
He said he had asked Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, to investigate exactly what happened, but he continued to insist that he had been assured that no party had taken place and that any gatherings in Downing Street were within the rules. This was followed by Stratton’s tearful resignation – from her job as spokesperson for Alok Sharma, president of the climate change summit.
She had moved to that post after Johnson decided not to go ahead with televised briefings, partly on account of the rehearsal in the leaked video in which she had said in response to the question about a party, “What’s the answer?” Instant opinion polls have shown that the public think that the apparent breach of coronavirus rules a year ago “does matter”, that the prime minister should resign (although a majority is likely to say that at most times), and that their likelihood of voting Conservative has fallen.
Meanwhile the prime minister is asking the country to follow new rules designed to slow the spread of the new variant of the virus, although as usual he had to be flanked by Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s scientific advisers, in a tacit admission that people wouldn’t necessarily obey instructions if they came from a politician.
If you have a question about the current state of this government, submit it now, or when I join you live at 1pm on Friday 10 December for an “Ask Me Anything” event.
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