Time to veto Downing Street parties, Labor tells Boris Johnson | Boris Johnson

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Labor has accused Boris Johnson of potentially misleading Parliament about his knowledge of Downing Street parties, as more details emerged about a contest he hosted in 10th place last year.

The prime minister came under more pressure on Sunday when a picture emerged of him in a room with his aides, who were dressed in tinsel and a Santa Claus hat. He read out quiz questions for employees disciplining from home but also to groups of officials who were elsewhere in the building, crowded around laptop screens without social distancing, and drank alcohol. Some of the employees then stayed, and continued to mingle with the others.

London was Level 2 at the time, which meant that while working together was allowed, mixing between families was prohibited for social reasons, including Christmas events.

Two sources who attended the event gave the Guardian details that questioned Johnson’s insistence in the Prime Minister’s latest questions that there should be no Christmas parties or a violation of the rules.

The insider said Johnson told people to have fun at the December 15 event, and that his private office had their own test team. Dan Rosenfeld, the prime minister’s new chief of staff, walked around some of the teams that called from different rooms at No. 10 to introduce himself.

“It wasn’t a huge event and it wasn’t actually a danger to people,” said one attendee, noting that there aren’t 10 employees tested per day when they go to work. But they added, “I think it’s morally wrong and I feel bad about it.”

Labor deputy leader Angela Rayner accused Johnson of potentially misleading MPs by denying any knowledge of the rules being broken when asked about the Christmas parties scandal in Parliament on Wednesday.

She said: “Boris Johnson appears to have lied to the country and broken the law. It is increasingly clear that the Prime Minister has orchestrated a culture of ignoring the rules he has asked everyone to follow. It’s time to admit it.”

The bereaved family members wrote to the Metropolitan Police urging them to investigate the gathering and other parties in Downing Street, with instructions from Scotland Yard to “stop turning a blind eye” to the alleged rule violation.

Joe Goodman, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice who lost her father, Stuart Goodman, to the virus in April 2020, said Johnson’s test photos “put an end to the notion that there were no broken rules in Downing Street last year”.

“It is not clear to families who have lost loved ones why such evidence is not being used, and it appears that no investigation is being conducted by the Metropolitan Police, despite numerous requests,” she said.

Good Bill founder Jolyon Maugham QC said the organization plans to move forward with a police judicial review if it does not open an investigation, which is “difficult but not impossible”.

Maugham said the photo of the prime minister hosting a Downing Street staff contest last Christmas “directly implicated” Johnson in a way that “cannot be denied and he is no longer denying it”.

However, the Minister of Education, Nadim Al-Zahawi, rejected the leaked image, stating that he believes it shows that the reports of the parties held in No. 10 in defiance of the closure and restrictions imposed on it are exaggerated.

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