Beleaguered Boris Johnson has broken his silence over the 'bring your own bottle' party in Downing Street.
He claimed that "nobody told me" that the boozy lockdown bash broke Covid rules and insisted that he hadn't lied to Parliament about the event in May 2020, reports the Mirror.
Mr Johnson has not been seen in public since he pulled out of a visit last Thursday after a family member tested positive for coronavirus.
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Looking pale and drawn on a visit to a hospital in north London today, he is facing renewed calls to quit after continuing allegations of rule-breaking parties in Downing Street - and accusations he has lied to Parliament.
The PM admitted to MPs last week that he briefly attended a BYOB gathering in the No 10 garden on May 20, 2020 - but tried to claim he thought it was a work event.
Former No 10 aide Dominic Cummings mounted another attack on his former boss on Monday night, claiming the Prime Minister had "lied to Parliament" and multiple witnesses "would swear under oath" that he was told about the event.
In an explosive blogpost, Mr Cummings said the PM was warned that the event went against the rules but he "waved it aside".
Asked if he had lied to the public and Parliament, Mr Johnson told broadcasters: "No. I want to begin by repeating my apologies to everybody for the misjudgments that I've made, that we may have made in No 10 and beyond, whether in Downing Street or throughout the pandemic.
"I do know how infuriating it must be for people up and down the country, in view of the huge sacrifices people have made... to think that didn't happen in 10 Downing Street.
"On that point, nobody told me that what we were doing was against the rules, that the event in question was something that wasn't a work event, and as I said in the House of Commons when I went out into that garden, I thought that I was attending a work event."
The PM pleaded for people to wait for the results of Sue Gray's official inquiry into allegations of rule-breaking parties in Downing Street and across Whitehall.
The senior civil servant is probing a string of allegations of parties, including several bashes revealed by the Mirror.
Later, interviewed by Sky News political editor Beth Rigby, Mr Johnson avoided the opportunity to call Mr Cummings a liar.
She asked him: "So you are saying Dominic Cummings is lying?"
Mr Johnson replied that he was just sorry mistakes had been made.
When pressed that Mr Cummings had called him a liar, the Prime Minister said he could say categorically nobody told him this was against the rules, or not a work event.
