Ministers have reached for elaborate defences of Johnson’s lockdown-breaking party
Boris Johnson became the first sitting prime minister to be criminally sanctioned when he was fined for breaking his own Covid laws by attending a party for his birthday in No 10. While the development prompted renewed calls for his resignation, loyal ministers and Downing Street sources have reached for some creative and elaborate defences of his law breaking.
I think we do see consistently, whether it is through parking fines or speeding fines, ministers of both parties over the years have been in that position.
It’s not as if [Johnson] walked into a rave in Ibiza.
The prime minister was there for a very short time. He was eating a salad lunch in the Cabinet room with people he worked with all day. People kept popping in.
The ways it’s been characterised, you would think there were pole dancers.
There was always an exemption around work but the prime minister accepted mistakes were made. If you’re going from meeting to meeting and it’s something at 2pm in the afternoon, people wouldn’t particularly call that a party. You don’t tend to call that a party.
He was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake.
He’s not robbed a bank. This is getting out of control.
My take as someone who has worked in Downing Street is that the prime minister doesn’t really own his own diary.
Well, I just don’t recognise that as a party. And if that’s the sort of parties you go to they’re not much fun, are they?
