Boris Johnson has rejected calls for his resignation after senior civil servant Sue Gray found he had presided over a culture of rule-breaking, drunkenness and boorish behaviour during lockdown. Mr Johnson said he took full responsibility for what happened, adding that he was humbled and had learned a lesson.
Ms Gray described a culture of rule-breaking in Downing Street with staff enjoying after-work drinks regularly while the country was in lockdown. On some occasions, parties lasted late into the night with drunk officials vomiting and getting into fights.
“I was made aware of multiple examples of a lack of respect and poor treatment of security and cleaning staff,” she wrote.
At a press conference in Downing Street on Wednesday, Mr Johnson defended his attendance at drinks parties to say farewell to departing staff during lockdown.
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“These were the public servants who secured the PPE that saved many lives, established the biggest testing programme in Europe, and enabled the development and distribution of the vaccines that succeeded in protecting so many people. When some of these officials and advisers were leaving their jobs, I briefly attended gatherings to thank them for everything they had done because I believe that recognising achievement and preserving morale are essential duties of leadership,” he said.
Mr Johnson said that now that Ms Gray had reported, he wanted to turn his attention to other issues and his government is expected to announce a package of measures on Thursday to address the cost of living crisis. In the House of Commons, Labour leader Keir Starmer said the report laid bare the rot that had spread in Downing Street under Mr Johnson.
“It provides definitive proof of how those within that building treated the sacrifices of the British people with utter contempt. When the dust settles and the anger subsides this report will stand as a monument to the hubris and the arrogance of a government that believed it was one rule for them another rule for everyone else,” he said.
The prime minister told MPs that when he told them that no rules had been broken in Downing Street, he believed that to be the case. The Commons privileges committee will consider whether he misled parliament but Mr Johnson’s allies were confident on Wednesday that he was safe from a move against him within his own party.
Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee who has already called for the prime minister to resign, urged his party colleagues to act.
" This is a damning report about the absence of leadership, focus and discipline in No 10, the one place where we expect to find those attributes in abundance. I have made my position very clear to the prime minister: he does not have my support. A question I humbly put to my colleagues is: are you willing, day in day out, to defend this behaviour publicly? Can we continue to govern without distraction, given the erosion of the trust of the British people? And can we win a general election on this trajectory?” he said.
