The prime minister has continued to wade into hot water after a lockdown-breaking birthday bash was held at Downing Street in June 2020.
Rules at the time stated that social gatherings - i.e parties - were not allowed indoors.
This revelation comes as ITN News shares details of Boris Johnson’s wife, Carrie, and around 30 staff members celebrating the prime minister’s birthday in the cabinet room - with the PM being surprised with a cake.
Carrie had allegedly helped to organise the shindig as a surprise get-together for hubby Johnson on the afternoon of June 19 shortly after 2pm.
ITV News later revealed a strange twist, with Lulu Lytle, who was embroiled in the redecoration fiasco at the Prime Minister’s flat last year, popping down to wish the birthday boy a happy birthday.
This raised eyebrows as Lulu did not work in Downing Street.
It is understood that the party lasted for around 30 minutes but allegations have been made that the family and friends of the PM continued the party in his residential 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, the Daily Record also reports.
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”.
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.”
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?”
