THE PRIME Minister has insisted he has broken no coronavirus rules after an image emerged of him joining in a Downing Street quiz last Christmas.
Boris Johnson was asked about the image, first reported by the Sunday Mirror yesterday, during a visit to a vaccination centre this morning.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it looked as if Mr Johnson had broken the law and broken coronavirus restrictions based on the image, which showed the PM flanked by two aides on December 15 2020.
At the time London was in Tier 2 restrictions, which included no mixing of households indoors, apart from support bubbles, and a maximum of six people outside.
The image shows Mr Johnson joined by two aides, one wearing tinsel and another wearing a santa hat, in the Thatcher room at Downing Street.
Asked about the photograph this morning, Mr Johnson said "I certainly broke no rules” but said the investigation into parties across Whitehall, to be conducted by the head of the civil service, will include his festive quiz.
He said: “I can tell you that I certainly broke no rules – the whole thing will be looked into by the Cabinet Secretary, and what I’m focused on, frankly, is the vaccine rollout.”
Pressed if that means Mr Case’s investigation will include the quiz, Mr Johnson replied: “He’s looking at all these things. Is that the thing with the Zoom call? Yeah.”
He said the results would come back “as soon as we reasonably can” as he stressed the need for booster jabs to combat the threat of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Labour said the Prime Minister “might have misled” MPs after he told the Commons he had been given assurances that social distancing regulations were not broken by No 10 last year.
Sir Keir Starmer said it is “very hard” to see how the Tier 2 rules could have been adhered to in the quiz.
Official guidance set out there should be no work lunches or parties “where that is a primarily social activity” and they were not exempted for “work purposes”.
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the Prime Minister’s credibility is “in tatters”.
Asked on BBC Breakfast why Sir Keir stopped short of calling for Mr Johnson to resign, instead saying he was “unfit to lead”, Mr Lammy said: “Well, that must, in the end, be a matter for the Prime Minister."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel