Boris Johnson has urged the public to “move on” from partygate, as he said that lessons had been learned from the scandal.
In his first public comments, just hours after he received Sue Gray’s damning report into events in Downing Street under Covid restrictions, he also said he accepted “full responsibility” for his failings.
But he denied he had intentionally misled parliament and insisted he had been as “surprised and disappointed” as others to see the extent of the revellling in Downing Street.
He ducked a direct question from one of his own MPs about reports he suggested to Ms Gray that she drop plans to publish her report, saying only that the decision of what to put in the public domain was one for the senior civil servant.
The Gray report criticises what it said was a “serious failure” to abide by the “standards expected of the entire British population” during the pandemic.
It found that a senior advisor to the prime minister boasted “we seem to have got away with” the now notorious ‘bring your own booze’ garden party during coronavirus restrictions.
Other findings include that one individual threw up and a scuffle broke out at another leaving do for a No 10 official.
And after a party on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, one reveller finally left No 10 at 4.20 am.
The prime minister has been accused of presiding over Covid lockdown breaches on a “record-breaking scale”, after the Metropolitan Police issued 126 fines for events spanning eight dates.
Mr Johnson himself received just a single fine, for a party to martk his birthday during lockdown.
Referring to Ms Gray’s report, Mr Johnson said: “I hope very much that now that she has reported we will be able to move on and focus on the priorities of the British people”.
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told him to resign saying : “It is time to pack his bags” .
He urged unhappy Conservative MPs to act to oust their leader. They should “tell the current inhabitant (of No 10) that this has gone on too long,” he said.
They “can hide in the backseat praying for a miracle” or “they can act to stop this out of touch, out of control prime minister from driving Britain towards disaster,” he added.
