Three big problems for Boris Johnson after leaked Christmas party video
Tories fear public won’t listen to Covid instructions from a government that refuses to follow its own rules
The fallout for Downing Street over reports that it held a Christmas party during lockdown last year went from bad to worse last night as a video emerged of senior No. 10 staff joking about a Christmas bash.
The clip, which was recorded four days after the alleged 18 December party, shows the then No. 10 spokeswoman Allegra Stratton practising for a press briefing, fielding questions from her colleagues acting as journalists.
In response to a query about reports “on Twitter that there was a Downing Street Christmas party on Friday night”, the aides joke about whether “cheese and wine” counted. “This is recorded,” says Stratton, laughing, in the video leaked to ITV News. “This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Boris Johnson has apologised for the footage but Downing Street is still denying that there was a party – “a denial with all of the believability, but none of the charm, of a chocolate-covered toddler insisting they didn’t eat everything in the box”, said The New Statesman’s Stephen Bush.
Perhaps “the most telling thing of all” is that no minister was sent out on the usual morning media round today amid the “angry response” from MPs and members of the public, said Katy Balls in The Spectator. And “in a sign that ministers will struggle to write this one off as a ‘Westminster Bubble’ story, it makes the front of the majority of today’s papers”, she added.
‘Foreshadowing of future downfall’
Labour leader Keir Starmer urged Johnson to come clean and apologise, saying: “To lie and to laugh about those lies is shameful.” SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the prime minister should resign.
And in a statement, the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group said there were “simply no words to describe how upsetting and shameful” it was to “hear Boris Johnson’s team laughing about breaking the rules they had made”.
But much of the condemnation has come from Johnson’s own side. Sir Roger Gale, a senior Tory MP, said the controversy “has all the hallmarks of another ‘Barnard Castle’ moment”, referring to the Dominic Cummings scandal that left the Tory polling lead over Labour in tatters. Johnson’s approval rating is now at its worst since he was elected two years ago.
In Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, Johnson claimed he was “furious to see that clip” and apologised “unreservedly for the offence that it gave up and down the country”. But he once again said he had been assured there was no party and no Covid rules were broken.
The cabinet secretary has been asked to establish the facts and, if rules were broken, disciplinary action will be taken, he added.
No. 10 staff “hope that the fuss will fade quickly”, said Matthew d’Ancona in the London Evening Standard, but this is a “vain hope”. The electorate will not stand for a “one rule for you, one rule for us” government. For “all its comic value”, the Christmas party “could also be a deadly serious foreshadowing of future downfall”, he concluded.
North Shropshire vote
Next week’s North Shropshire by-election will be the first electoral test of whether or not the story has hit home with the public. The seat, which has been held by Tories since it was created in 1832, was vacated when Owen Paterson stood down over allegations that he broke lobbying rules.
After interviewing local constituents, The Observer’s Andrew Anthony said most people he spoke to “had only a sketchy sense of the case against Paterson”. But what many cited as a “greater cause for concern” was that No. 10 had broken the rules on Christmas parties last year. “It was the double standard that riled them rather than the misuse of public office,” he said.
The Covid factor
As new restrictions were brought in last month to slow the spread of the new Omicron variant, Professor Chris Whitty admitted his “greatest worry at the moment” was whether the public would accept fresh curbs on their freedoms. “Can we still take people with us?” was the question from the chief medical officer for England.
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg suggested the latest leaked footage might have an impact on the answer to this question. Tory MP Charles Walker said: “The No. 10 party means that any future lockdowns will be advisory, whatever the law says.”
Bush in The New Statesman argued that these ramifications for Covid are bigger than the political fallout. Ministers are today refusing to “go on air to communicate important public health messages for fear of being asked about the video” and they might also feel unable to risk tighter restrictions without further scrutiny of their own behaviour. “As we head into an uncertain few weeks, the government may well be fighting Omicron with both hands tied behind its back,” he said.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
John Prescott: was he Labour's last link to the working class?
Today's Big Quesiton 'A total one-off': tributes have poured in for the former deputy PM and trade unionist
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Last hopes for justice for UK's nuclear test veterans
Under the Radar Thousands of ex-service personnel say their lives have been blighted by aggressive cancers and genetic mutations
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Will Donald Trump wreck the Brexit deal?
Today's Big Question President-elect's victory could help UK's reset with the EU, but a free-trade agreement with the US to dodge his threatened tariffs could hinder it
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
What is the next Tory leader up against?
Today's Big Question Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick will have to unify warring factions and win back disillusioned voters – without alienating the centre ground
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
What is Lammy hoping to achieve in China?
Today's Big Question Foreign secretary heads to Beijing as Labour seeks cooperation on global challenges and courts opportunities for trade and investment
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Bob Woodward's War: the explosive Trump revelations
In the Spotlight Nobody can beat Watergate veteran at 'getting the story of the White House from the inside'
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Trump kept up with Putin, sent Covid tests, book says
Speed Read The revelation comes courtesy of a new book by Bob Woodward
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Who will replace Rishi Sunak as the next Tory leader?
In Depth Shortlist will be whittled down to two later today
By The Week UK Last updated