CALLS FOR PM JOHNSON TO ‘TELL THE TRUTH’ AS ‘GARDEN PARTY’ PHOTOGRAPH RAISES FRESH QUESTIONS

Mon 20 December 2021:

During a lockdown last year, a photograph of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and more than a dozen other people drinking wine in the garden of his Downing Street residence did not show a party, according to his deputy.

Johnson is pictured with his wife Carrie, who appears to be holding their newborn son, and two other people at a table with cheese and wine on a terrace in the Downing Street garden, according to the Guardian.

“Downing Street use that garden as a place of work,” Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio. “That’s not against the regulations.”

“I genuinely don’t think it gets classified as a party,” Raab said. “I don’t think it was a party.”

British Prime Minister Johnson is under pressure again as he faces calls to “tell the truth” about an alleged garden party at Downing Street in May 2020, when even outdoor mixing was banned by his Government.

Guidance at the time was for households not to mix, unless it was only two people outdoors and socially distanced by at least two metres.

But the photo shows groups of Downing Street staffers gathered together, as well as the PM at a table with his wife and others.

The Guardian and The Independent previously reported that Johnson was present for 15 minutes at the May 2020 garden gathering following a Covid press conference on May 15, 2020.

EXCLUSIVE: Boris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020 https://t.co/HDyvi70Nqd

— The Guardian (@guardian) December 19, 2021

According to the newspapers’ sources, around 20 staff drank wine and spirits and ate pizza following the press conference at which then health secretary Matt Hancock had told the British public to stay at home “as much as is possible” and stressed the rules in force meant “you can meet one other person from outside your household in an outdoor, public place” as long as you kept two metres apart.

At the time schools were still shut and pubs and restaurants were closed, with strict controls on social mixing. More people had been allowed to return to their workplaces, but guidance said social distancing of 2 metres should be followed at all times and “only absolutely necessary participants should attend meetings and should maintain 2-metre separation throughout”.

Following the emergence of the photographs, Labour’s Ms Rayner tweeted: “I guess staff meetings look a bit different if you went to Eton?

“Enough is enough. Tell us the truth about what was going on in Downing Street from the very beginning immediately @BorisJohnson.”

Photo: The picture shows Johnson with his wife Carrie, who appears to be holding their newborn son, and two other people at a table on a terrace in the Downing Street garden with cheese and wine. (Twitter)

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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