Partygate: Fury as it’s claimed PM ‘poured drinks’ and encouraged staff to ‘let off steam’

Underfire Boris Johnson led the celebrations at a lockdown leaving do, according to the Mirror.

It is claimed that the PM allegedly poured the drinks to toast his former director of communications Lee Cain in November 2020, and had often urged staff to “let off steam”.

The source said: “He would come in and say, ‘Hello everyone, had a hard week? Letting off some steam? Oh great’. The idea that he didn’t know there were drinks is total nonsense. If the PM tells you to ‘let off steam’, he’s basically saying this is fine.”

One source told me about No 10 drinks: “Boris would come in and say, ‘Hello everyone, had a hard week? Letting off some steam? Oh great’. The idea that he didn’t know there were drinks is total nonsense. If the PM tells you to ‘let off steam’, he’s basically saying this is fine.”

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) April 17, 2022

It comes as Downing Street has used a national security loophole to spare the blushes of a guest at his lockdown-busting birthday party, the Sunday Mirror reports.

The PM, wife Carrie Johnson and the Chancellor all paid fines this week after attending the birthday party in June 2020.

However, there are concerns about the presence of Lulu Lytle, the luxury interior designer who attended the bash, while she was famously carrying out the pricey refurb of the PM’s Downing Street dwelling.

Mirror reporter Mikey Smith tweeted the following thread on the matter:

1.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, Downing Street refused to confirm or deny whether luxury interior designer Lulu Lytle had sufficient clearance to be in the Cabinet Room – where the party took place.

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) April 16, 2022

2.

Moreover, Downing Street insisted that any details of Lulu Lytle’s clearance to move around No10 would be "classified in the interests of national security, and, as such, cannot be divulged"

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) April 16, 2022

3.

They went on to claim that confirming the security status of the Prime Minister’s interior designer would (and that’s *would*, not could…) "prejudice the security of UK personnel.”

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) April 16, 2022

Rees-Mogg defends PM

Boris Johnson goes into a new week ready to defend his premiership again as he prepares to insist to MPs there are bigger issues to focus on than the partygate saga.

Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg indicated the defence Mr Johnson may reach for on Sunday.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend programme, he said: “I think that when you hear what happened on the party for which he has been fined, many people would think that they were in accordance with the rules, when they were meeting people they were with every day, who happened to wish them a happy birthday, because that was the day it was.

“I think that was a perfectly rational thing to believe. Now the police have decided otherwise and the police have an authority. But he wasn’t thinking something irrational or unreasonable, that that was within the rules.”

Reactions

There was fury on social media as these new revelations emerge.

1.

I wonder if they wrote that in their questionnaires? https://t.co/31eSkc5PwX

— Lila (@Lila740141) April 18, 2022

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I’m buying a copy of the Mirror tomorrow to reward their relentlessness https://t.co/WEZ0VTKIi6

— Siob, Princess of Yorkshire #FBPE #FBR (@Sillyshib) April 17, 2022

3.

The danger is today that sounds vaguely normal / acceptable.

On those dates I was scrabbling round buying single packets of masks at ridiculous prices, wherever I could find them, for care home staff (yes Hancock was lying).

No carers would have had a drink after work.

— Ian Darbyshire (@Ian_darbyshire) April 17, 2022

4.

https://twitter.com/JLB1988/status/1515820723469750275

5.

pic.twitter.com/7qxruuZ01C

— Cllr Shepzy (@tshep42) April 17, 2022

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