Senior backbench MP joins Scottish Tory leader in calling for Johnson to resign over No 10 lockdown party – as it happened

Boris Johnson’s half-apology on Wednesday, for accidentally attending a party work event in his own garden, was aimed at buying him some time. But it is becoming increasingly clear that his party is running out of patience.

Some backbenchers welcomed Johnson’s belated acknowledgement that he should have broken up the booze-fuelled gathering attended by up to 40 staff in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020, and suggested he had won himself the right to await Sue Gray’s findings.

As one MP put it: “We want the Sue Gray report – it’s only the decent thing to let her actually do it. We shouldn’t pull the trigger on the guilty verdict until we’ve actually seen the report.”

A junior minister agreed, saying Johnson had effectively “bet the farm” on the Gray report. “He’s done enough to win himself another week or two. If Gray doesn’t directly pin the blame on him, it will be framed by No 10 as exoneration,” they said.

However, many others, publicly and privately, warned that even before Gray sets out the details of lockdown social events in black and white, Johnson’s authority is draining away.

They must now decide whether the damage being done to the Conservative brand is so great that forcing a destabilising no confidence vote now is preferable to allowing him to continue in office.

Cabinet ministers have rallied behind the prime minister in an attempt to shore up Boris Johnson’s support - with one notable exception yet to come out to back him.

Senior Conservatives flooded broadcast studios and social media with praise for the PM.

The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, was the first out of the blocks to back her boss, saying an inquiry led by senior official Sue Gray must be allowed to go ahead.

Dorries wrote on Twitter that the “PM was right to personally apologise earlier.

“People are hurt and angry at what happened and he has taken full responsibility for that. The inquiry should now be allowed to its work and establish the full facts of what happened”.

Responding to her message, the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove said: “Nadine is right.”

And the former leadership hopeful also backed up the PM at the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, where he is reported to have said Mr Johnson “gets the big calls right” and urged colleagues not to be “flaky”.

Others who have offered their backing to Johnson include the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, Dominic Raab; the home secretary, Priti Patel; the transport secretary, Grant Shapps; the Commons leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and the health secretary, Sajid Javid.

However, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, had yet to publicly back Johnson on Wednesday evening. Sunak, viewed as a potential successor as Tory leader, was notably absent on a visit to Devon earlier in the day.

With MPs and the leader of the opposition calling for Boris Johnson to resign, speculation about who may take over is rife.

Names being discussed include Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Priti Patel and Jeremy Hunt.

My colleague Heather Stewart has considered some of the potential runners and riders should the prime minister resign or be forced out.

On the streets of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where Boris Johnson has been MP since 2015, people expressed “disappointment” and called for the prime minister to face a police investigation and penalties for breaking lockdown rules. But should he quit? Not a chance.

While most voters who spoke to the Guardian in the west London constituency expressed frustration and anger with actions they perceived as unfair, some regular Conservative voters said they would remain loyal to the prime minister, and others were sceptical about the alternatives.

As the prime minister finally apologises (sort of) for a lockdown party at Downing Street, Heather Stewart and Gaby Hinsliff look what the future holds for Boris Johnson. Plus, Peter Walker, Larry Elliott and Miatta Fahnbulleh discuss the impending cost of living crisis.

Finally we got some kind of explanation from the prime minister for his boozy parties at Downing Street. It turns out that Boris Johnson wants us to believe that Boris Johnson thinks that Boris Johnson is catatonically stupid. And that the British public are equally half-witted enough to believe any old lies he happens to come up with. There’s just one problem with this. Boris may be dim, but he’s not that dim. And the rest of us have long since learned to see through his mendacity.

This was the prime minister’s questions at which Johnson finally ran out of road. An outright denial that he had been at the party on 20 May 2020 would no longer keep him out of trouble as there was anecdotal evidence he was there. So all that was left to him was to come up with the best possible excuse and hope it would buy off a few of the more gullible Tory MPs. Only the best possible excuse turned out to be a crock of total shit.

Read the full politics sketch below.

It is looking as though those Tories who are part of Boris Johnson’s inner circle are doing their utmost to rally the troops, as the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, joined Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg in calling for Tory MPs to stand by the prime minister.

Sky News’s deputy political editor, Sam Coates, has tweeted another screenshot of the now infamous Tory MP WhatsApp group. Safe in the knowledge that every contribution is to be shared with the media, it’s a wonder they don’t simply cut out the middle man and have these carefully worded exchanges direct on Twitter.

But, anyway, Kwarteng echoed his colleagues in saying they need to let the investigation continue, before reeling off a list of Conservative priorities ahead of the next election - which he predicted will take place in two years.

He wrote:

I know a lot going on. PM absolutely right to apologise and we need to let the investigation complete its work.

But we have a really important job to do in the next two years before GE.

Need to keep the economy open, £billions going into levelling up, new nuclear, Brexit opportunities to grasp and cutting burdens facing business. Top priorities !!

An NHS doctor has described Boris Johnson’s apology as “insulting”, as she recalled how she was sweating while working in full PPE around the same time as the event took place.

Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who lost her father to Covid in the pandemic, said she believes the prime minister’s situation is untenable. The doctor, who is currently on a clinical break and doing a PhD at Cambridge, was working at a hospital in Bangor in Wales in the early part of the Covid crisis, PA Media reported.

Dr Ahsan said for anyone to suggest that people in government were “working so super hard that they absolutely needed to go and have a bit of time out and a bit of a group ‘bring your own bottle’ gathering in the private gardens of 10 Downing Street is actually so super insulting”.

She added:

No one has worked harder than frontline NHS workers. No one, absolutely no-one and we didn’t do that.

She said hearing of “yet another wrongdoing, another slip-up” by those at the top of government is “traumatising”, saying healthcare workers “collectively feel insulted”. She said:

What it does, it reminds us of what we were doing at that time. And what was I doing in May 2020? I was dressed in PPE. Yeah, the weather was warm. I was sweating. Trying not to pass out every time I went into the contamination room to see a patient who had Covid in our full PPE. We weren’t going out in the evenings to gather as colleagues to have drinks.

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has seized upon a leaked message from Priti Patel urging other Tory MPs in a WhatsApp group to get behind Boris Johnson.

But she reminded the home secretary of her own words last year when she urged people to call the police to report their neighbours holding parties during lockdown.

She wrote on Twitter: “Sept 2020 Priti Patel said she’d call police to report neighbours holding parties. Today she’s defending Boris Johnson after he admitted doing just that.

“As Home Sec she’s responsible for upholding the rule of law for all. Not one rule for your mates & another for everyone else.”

Good evening, Tom Ambrose here to bring you all the latest fallout from Westminster today as Boris Johnson’s own MPs continue to turn up the heat on the prime minister after his display in the Commons this afternoon.

The Commons leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has unsurprisingly leapt to the defence of Johnson, telling Times Radio:

I think the prime minister has got things right again and again and again.

But like us all, he accepts that during a two-and-a-half-year period there will be things that with hindsight would have been done differently.

He dismissed opinion polls suggesting Johnson should resign and said Tory MPs who have called for the PM to go were “people who are always unhappy”. He said:

They are people who have never really supported the prime minister, two of the ones you mentioned have always been quite strongly opposed to him, and therefore you would expect them to be relatively grumpy, and so that’s not surprising.

I think they are fundamentally mistaken and they are misjudging where we are and what the prime minister has succeeded in doing.

However, many Conservatives appear to have turned on the prime minister.

For example, the York Outer MP Julian Sturdy has said Johnson’s claim he thought the gathering at Downing Street was work-related “will not wash with the British public, who at the relevant time were making significant sacrifices”.

In a statement to The Yorkshire Post he said:

The fact is, that at a time when people were not allowed to attend the funeral of their loved ones or comfort their dying relatives, when fines were being issued for people meeting for a coffee in the park, Downing Street should not have been holding social events of any sort.

I share the frustration and disappointment of the many constituents who have contacted me over this, and assure them that I will make this known in holding the prime minister to account.

This is from my colleague Severin Carrell. He says more than 60% of Tory MSPs are now calling for Boris Johnson’s resignation.

The Conservative party is a unionist party and in Scotland it is the largest opposition party. But to what extent can it remain a proper UK party if its UK leader is unacceptable to the party in Scotland (where Boris Johnson is hugely unpopular, and where backing him would be even more toxic for a Conservative politician than in England)?

Johnson says he is a unionist. But Brexit, which he arguably made happen, has put fresh strains on the union, during Covid he has had to govern, in many respects, as an English PM, not a UK PM (because devolution has allowed health policy to vary markedly), and now his leadership is driving an England/Scotland wedge through the party.

On that note, I am done for the day, but my colleague Tom Ambrose is taking over to keep you updated with the latest developments.

Dominic Cummings, the former Boris Johnson adviser who first revealed last week that there was a party in No 10 on 20 May 2020, says Johnson’s claim that it was a work event, and technically within the rules, is rubbish.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, has told Times Radio that those Tories calling for Boris Johnson to resign are people who are “always unhappy” because they did not support him anyway. These are from the Telegraph’s Lucy Fisher.

The Labour MP Chris Bryant posted this on Twitter earlier.

You can read Bryant’s question at 12.42pm.

In a statement on his website Neil Hudson, the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, says that he welcomed Boris Johnson’s admission and apology a PMQs. But Hudson implied that was not the end of the matter. He went on:

I will not defend the indefensible and I fully share the country’s outrage and upset when people up and down the land were making huge personal and sometimes tragic sacrifices to do the right thing and obey the public health rules. We need quickly to get clarity and full transparency as to what happened. Again, if rules have been broken then quite rightly there should be serious consequences.

Twitter is having fun with Boris Johnson’s claim that he though the party he attended in the N0 10 garden was a work event. (See 12.26pm.)

From Ryanair

From the Larry the Cat account

From the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy

From the FT’s Chris Cook

Perhaps Iain Dale has prompted them into action (see 3.09pm) - some cabinet ministers are now putting out tweets that are (moderately) supportive of Boris Johnson. But they all imply the findings of the Sue Gray investigation should determine what happens next, which does not let Johnson off the hook.

From Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary

From Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary

From Sajid Javid, the health secretary

A spokeswoman for Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy first minister, has said it is “categorically untrue” to say Raab was at the No 10 party on 20 May 2020. “He wasn’t invited and didn’t attend,” the spokeswoman said. Earlier the Conservative MP Simon Hoare implied Raab was there. (See 2.19pm.)

In his pooled TV interview, Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, stressed that he was speaking as an individual MP, not on behalf of the entire Scottish party. But he said other MPs shared his concerns. He said:

This is a position I have taken as an individual MP and MSP. I know speaking to colleagues here in the Scottish parliament and the UK parliament there’s significant unrest and concern about the actions that took place in Downing Street on 20 May 2020.

Ross said the 20 May gathering clearly was a party.

The evidence is clear. People were invited to bring their own booze, to enjoy the garden in Downing Street and that is by any definition a party, a gathering that wasn’t allowed and therefore the prime minister broke his own rules.

Ross also said it was up to the prime minister how quickly he stood down and it was up to other MPs whether they pressed for a motion of no confidence in him. He said:

I think we have seen across the house some pretty quite galling stories of how people were affected either themselves or their constituents, and I think there’s a strength of feeling across the spectrum that this is a most serious issue.

PoliticsHome is also hearing Tory chatter about a successful leadership challenge to Boris Johnson being inevitable.

And here is an extract from the PoliticsHome story by Alain Tolhust, Kate Proctor and Adam Payne.

One Tory backbencher described the apology as “half-arsed”, and a senior Conservative MP told PoliticsHome it was “just a matter of time” before Johnson faced a leadership challenge, and dismissed today’s apology ...

Another backbencher agreed today’s statement had not got Johnson off the hook. “I just don’t see what this does except buy days of time at most,” they said.

One MP told PoliticsHome that Johnson mingled with colleagues in the Commons Tea Room after PMQs apologising for all the “crap” he had put them through.

He is said to have told them he was being “electrocuted by the anger of the public”.

Covid infections continued to rise in all four nations of the UK in the past week according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

The ONS estimates that 3,735,000 people in England, or one in 15, had Covid in the week ending 6 January – a new pandemic high – based on swabs taken from random households in the community.

While infections increased across England, the percentage of people testing positive in London fell for the first time in the Omicron wave, suggesting that the sharp surge in cases in the capital may have peaked. All other regions of England saw infections rise, except the east of England where the trend was uncertain.

People aged 70 and over had the lowest infection rates in England, but the percentage testing positive rose in those aged 50 and above, indicating that the virus is still spreading into the older, more vulnerable age groups.

In other countries of the UK, the ONS estimates that one in 20 had Covid in the week studied, equating to 297,400 infections in Scotland, 169,100 in Wales and 99,200 in Northern Ireland. The rise of Omicron has driven Delta infections to “very low levels”, the survey found.

Lord Falconer, the Labour former lord chancellor, told Radio 4’s the World at One that Boris Johnson should be fined, or charged, because he admitted at PMQs that he attended an event that broke the law. He said that despite Johnson’s “lawyerly words” about it being a work event, a judge would not accept that argument.

Falconer also said that Johnson should resign because he had misled parliament. As evidence, he cited what Johnson said in December, when he told MPs at PMQs that he was angry to learn about parties at No 10. That implied he had not attended any, Falconer said. He went on:

Well, he had [attended parties at No 10]. He was lying to the house, and he should pay the price. The price is, because this is the way our political system works, if you can’t be trusted to inform the Commons honestly, for the prime minister, you’ve got to go, because nobody can trust you.

This is from Iain Dale, the broadcaster and former Tory adviser.

According to ITV’s Anushka Asthana, Conservative MPs in increasing numbers think Boris Johnson will, or should, leave office.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has written an open letter today to the Met police urging them to investigate the No 10 party last May, and to interview Boris Johnson. Davey said:

Boris Johnson admitted today that he did attend this illegal party in the Downing Street garden. The Met police must now confirm that a full investigation will be launched and that the prime minister himself will be interviewed.

The police must reassure the public that justice will be done and there isn’t one rule for them and another for Boris Johnson and his colleagues in Downing Street.

And this is from ITV’s Robert Peston. As an earlier post illustrated (see 11.31am), a remarkable amount of detail about this party is now being passed on to journalists (not a good sign for No 10).

This is from Sky’s Sam Coates, quoting the Conservative MP Simon Hoare. If Hoare is trying to be helpful, he is probably not succeeding.

UPDATE: Here is the full quote. Hoare said:

As I understand it, and this is a third-hand understanding, this was a party organised to say, in the first instance, welcome back prime minister.

He had been in hospital, I think I’ve got the timeline right, and recuperating at Chequers.

It was also a way of saying thank you to Dominic Raab for holding the fort.

So whether the prime minister knew it was taking place or whether everybody just jumped out of the shrubbery and said: ‘Surprise’, I don’t know.

Asked whether Johnson can survive, Hoare replied: “I don’t know.”

At a post-PMQs briefing Labour said it was now only a matter of time before Boris Johnson had to go. A spokesman for the Labour leader said:

As Keir said in PMQs today, it is only a matter of time now whether the prime minister is rejected by the public, the Conservative party or does the decent thing and resigns himself, and those are still the three ways forward.

If you’re asking why Keir Starmer used the language he did today, it was very simply because we have now got, after all of the various tortured attempts at explaining what happened, an on-the-record acknowledgement in parliament from the prime minister that the rules were broken, that there was inappropriate behaviour in Downing Street, that he was involved in it, and, by any reasonable measure, I think that meets the test of calling on him to resign.

The spokesman also said Starmer did not want to see civil servants take the blame on Johnson’s behalf. He said:

We have kept the focus on the person who is responsible and the buck stops with the prime minister.

We don’t want to see an exercise where civil servants are going to get thrown under the bus to try and protect the prime minister - the fact of the matter is that the culture in government is set from the top and so our interest is in what the prime minister knew, when he knew it and why he hasn’t been able to tell us the truth up to this point.

And this is from my colleague Aubrey Allegretti, who is also getting the impression from Conservative MPs that they believe his PMQs apology and explanation will not be enough to rescue him.

From Sky’s Joe Pike

Adam Wagner, the lawyer and expert commentator on Covid regulations, has posted a thread on Twitter analysing Boris Johnson’s apology. It starts here.

Wagner says, from a legal point of view, the apology seems designed to evade personal liablility.

This is from Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Conservative leader, who has been one of the Tories most critical of Boris Johnson over the No 10 party.

These are from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks why Allegra Stratton, a woman, is the only person to have resigned over No 10 parties, while Johnson, who attended them, is still in post. He says Johnson should resign.

Johnson says he does not agree, and he urges Davey to wait for the Gray report.

Some of the earlier posts, covering the Johnson/Starmer exchanges, have now been beefed up with direct quotes, from PA Media. You may need to refresh the page to get them to appear.

This is from the BBC’s Nick Robinson on Johnson’s apology.

Toby Perkins (Lab) says no PM has diminished the office like Johnson. He has been sacked from two previous jobs for lying. Why should the office of PM be held to a lower standard.

Johnson says he does not agree.

Karl Turner (Lab) says Johnson has only apologised because he was caught. He says Johnson still wants to maintain one rule for him, and another for the rest of us. He must resign.

Johnson refers Turner to the answer given earlier.

Stephen Farry (Alliance) says his constituents feel betrayed by the PM. Standards in public life have declined. Will he resign?

Johnson says, on Farry’s “political point”, Farry should wait for the Gray report.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, quotes a former soldier saying he follows the rules but the PM doesn’t. Will the PM resign?

Johnson says Blackford should wait until the inquiry is concluded.

Blackford says Johnson has no shame. He was drinking and laughing in his garden while the public were suffering.

If the prime minister has no sense of shame, the Tory backbenchers must act to remove him.

Johnson thanks Blackford for his advice. He says he feel contrition. But he stresses the success of the vaccination programme.

Starmer says he spoke last night to a woman, Hannah Brady , whose father died last May.

Her father died just days before the drinks trolley was being wheeled through Downing Street and last year Hannah met the prime minister in the Downing Street garden. She looked the prime minister in the eye and told him of her loss.

The prime minister told Hannah he had done everything he could to protect her dad. Looking back, what Hannah told me last night was this - she realises the prime minister had partied in that same garden the very day her dad’s death certificate was signed.

What Hannah wants to know is this: does the prime minister understand why it makes her feel sick to think about the way he’s behaved?

Johnson says he understands how she feels.

I sympathise deeply with Hannah, with people who have suffered up and down this country during the pandemic, and I repeat that I wish things had been done differently on that evening, and I repeat my apology for all the misjudgments that may have been made, that were made on my watch in No 10 and across the government.

I want to reassure the people of this country, including Hannah and her family, that we have been working to do everything we can to protect her and her family.

Starmer says Johnson has misled parliament, which is in breach of the rules. Will his party kick him out or will the public kick him out?

We’ve got the prime minister attending Downing Street parties - a clear breach of the rules. We’ve got the prime minister putting forward a series of ridiculous denials which he knows are untrue - a clear breach of the ministerial code. That code says ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation.

The party’s over, prime minister. The only question is will the British public kick him out, will his party kick him out or will he do the decent thing and resign?

Johnson says Starmer is paid to try to get him out of office. He says Starmer should wait for the Gray report. He apologises for the mistakes made.

I know it is his objective and he is paid to try to remove me from office and I appreciate that and I accept that.

But may I humbly suggest to him that he should wait until the inquiry has concluded, he should study it for himself and I will certainly respond as appropriate - and I hope that he does - but in the meantime, yes, I certainly wish that things had happened differently on the evening of 20 May and I apologise for all the misjudgments that have been made for which I take full responsibility.

Starmer says the PM originally said he had been assured there were no parties. Then the video landed, and he pretended he was sickened by the parties. Now it turns out he was at the parties. Starmer says the public think he is “lying through his teeth”.

Everyone can see what happened. It started with reports of boozy parties in Downing Street during lockdown. The prime minister pretended that he had been assured there were no parties. How that fits with his defence now I do not know.

Then the video landed, blowing the prime minister’s first defence out of the water, so then he pretended ... he was sickened and furious about the parties, now it turns out he was at the parties all along. Can’t the prime minister see why the British public think he’s lying through his teeth?

Tory MPs object, on the grounds that MPs should not accuse each other of lying. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, defends Starmer, saying he is talking about what the public think.

Johnson says he does not accept that. He says a lawyer should wait for the facts.

It’s up to [Starmer] to choose how he conducts himself in this place ... what he said is wrong in several key respects, but that does not detract from the basic point that I want to make today, which is that I accept that we should have done things differently on that evening.

As I said to the house, I believe that the events in question were within the guidance and were within the rules, and that was certainly the assumption on which I operated ... He should wait before he jumps to conclusions, a lawyer should respect the inquiry. I hope that he will wait until the facts are established and brought to this house.

Starmer says Matt Hancock resigned when he broke the rules, and Allegra Stratton resigned for laughing about rule-breaking. Why does the PM think the rules don’t apply to him.

Why does the prime minister still think that the rules don’t apply to him?

When the prime minister’s former health secretary broke the rules, he resigned and the prime minister said he was right to do so.

When the prime minister’s spokesperson laughed about the rules being broken, she resigned and the prime minister accepted that resignation.

Why does the prime minister still think that the rules don’t apply to him?

Johnson says that is not what he said.

That’s not what I’ve said and I understand the point that he makes. As I’ve said, I regret the way things happened on the evening in question and I apologise, but if I may say to him, I do think it would be better if he waited until the full conclusion of the inquiry, until the full facts are brought before this house and he will have an opportunity to put his points again.

Starmer asks if the PM is so contemptuous of the public he thinks he can ride this out.

Johnson confirms he heard Jim Shannon in the Commons yesterday (breaking down when he talked about the death of his mother-in-law). He says he bitterly regrets what happened. He has apologised. But Starmer must wait for the Gray report.

Johnson says he thought it was a work event.

I appreciate the point that [Starmer is] making about the event that I attended. I want to repeat that I thought it was a work event and I regret very much that we did not do things differently that evening.

I take responsibility and I apologise. But as for his political point, I don’t think that he should pre-empt the outcome of the inquiry. He will have a further opportunity, I hope, to question me as soon as possible.

Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, has become the first cabinet minister to publicly express concerns about the latest partygate revelations. As WalesOnline reports, Hart said this morning:

We’re in the middle of an investigation, that was set up by the PM to get to the bottom and to get to the truth about what was reasonable at the time and what wasn’t. It’s frustrating to have to rely on the investigation and we must be careful to not pre-judge that or what the PM will say in a few minutes’ time.

The one thing I’m not going to do is make light of something that is unquestionably something of a significant public concern.

I don’t live on a different planet. The frustration and the hurt and indignation and the incredulity that emerging stories like this produce. I’ve got, like everyone, family and friends asking me these questions. We have to get to the bottom of this.

Judgment will need to be made about what happens next.

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is a favourite to replace Boris Johnson if he does have to resign. Conveniently, a diary engagement in Devon means that Sunak will be nowhere near the Commons at 12pm, and won’t have to sit on the frontbench alongside the PM offering his support.

Turning away from partygate for a moment, the Good Law Project, a campaigning group which has been using the law to challenge the government on policy matters, says it has won an important victory in the high court today on PPE procurement. It says the high court has accepted its case that the governnment’s use of a fast-track VIP lane, that allowed suppliers recommended by ministers to get priority consideration when emergency PPE contracts were being handed out in earlier stages of the pandemic, was unlawful.

Welcoming the decision, Jo Maugham, head of the Good Law Project, said: “Never again should any government treat a public health crisis as an opportunity to enrich its associates and donors at public expense.”

There is some excellent detail about the No 10 party on 20 May 2020 in the Times’s backgrounder. In their report (paywall), Steven Swinford and Henry Zeffman say that Martin Reynolds, who sent out the email invitation to around 100 staff as the PM’s principal private secretary, became “panicky” in advance of the event, because staff were concerned it was against the rules, but decided cancelling the event would make things worse. They go on:

That afternoon, staff began preparations. A row of tables was set up on one side of the garden to act as a bar. In the garden itself more tables were set up in a layout to encourage people to observe social-distancing rules.

Officials and advisers began arriving shortly after 6pm. While many stayed away, about 40 came. Many took up Reynolds’ suggestion in his email that they should “BYOB” — bring your own booze — taking a trip to the Tesco Express next to Westminster station. The drinks table was well stocked with gin, rosé, red wine and white wine, and guests began to arrive and mingle.

Two sources said that the prime minister attended, with one saying he was “wandering round gladhanding people”. His fiancée Carrie Symonds, whom he married last year, also attended and was said to have been drinking with Henry Newman, then an adviser to Michael Gove and now a senior figure in No 10.

The Times has been told that one senior official at the event joked about the risk of surveillance by drones, which was viewed as a tacit admission that the rules were being breached.

According to the Liberal Democrats, the police in England issued 118,419 fines for breaking lockdown rules between 27 March 2020 and 17 October last year. That included 800 fines in the week when the No 10 party was held on 20 May 2020.

In London 17,745 fines were issued between March 2020 and October last year, including 113 for holding illegal gatherings of more than 30 people.

The party has taken the figures from a report (pdf) from the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said:

Thousands of Londoners have been fined for flouting lockdown rules during the pandemic. It would be double standards of the worst kind for the police to turn a blind eye when those in No 10 have done the same.

There will be two urgent questions in the Commons after PMQs. The first, at 12.30pm, will cover the government’s vaccination strategy, and at about 1.15pm there will be one on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

What will Boris Johnson say about partygate at PMQs? Last night the FT columnist Robert Shrimsley tried to guess, and his script reads like a plausible version of what we may hear in about an hour’s time.

The Independent’s John Rentoul is expecting something very similar.

In response to Shrimsley’s tweet, John McTernan, who worked for Tony Blair in Downing Street, proposes a much more humbling mea culpa - laced with patriotism, and a promise to do better. (Other politicians might be able to pull this off, but given Johnson’s record on promise-keeping, he might find it hard.)

Theo Bertram, another former Labour No 10 aide, thinks Martin Reynolds will be sacrificed.

And the i’s Paul Waugh suggests Johnson might go for a wider standards overhaul.

Another journalist who is very well plugged in to the thinking of Tory MPs is the Conservative Home editor Paul Goodman, a former MP himself. In what might be a rather ominous development for Johnson, Goodman devotes his main ConHome article this morning to discussing the process by which the Conservative party might go about replacing him (although he does not describe Johnson’s resignation as inevitable).

This is from James Forsyth, the Spectator’s political editor, who is one of the lobby journalists best informed on the thinking in the Conservative parliamentary party.

The Conservative MP Christian Wakeford says, in what is clearly a reference to the No 10 partygate stories, that he and his colleagues have been asked to “defend the indefensible”.

Keir Starmer will be at PMQs today, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg reports. Starmer has been isolating since he tested positive for Covid last week. But he has tested negative two days in a row - making him a beneficiary of the government’s decision to cut the minimum isolation period from 10 days to seven days.