Boris Johnson faces more questions about his team’s attitude towards coronavirus rules after it emerged that Tory aides threw a raucous Christmas party and senior Downing Street staff held a quiz night.
As anger grows among Tory MPs about an event held in No 10 on December 18 last year, The Times can disclose that Conservative Party staff danced and drank wine late into the night at another event that month. Senior advisers and officials working in Downing Street also held a Christmas quiz, and one source claimed that Dan Rosenfield, Johnson’s incoming chief of staff, took part.
There are suggestions that up to seven lockdown-breaking gatherings took place in November and December, including government staff leaving dos, and alleged parties at Johnson’s flat, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education.
The revelations follow the resignation of Allegra Stratton, Johnson’s spokeswoman on the Cop26 climate conference, after a leaked video showed her laughing about the December 18 party. It took place two days after London went into Tier 3, meaning that people were not allowed to mix indoors with anyone outside their household or support bubble.
Johnson said he was “sickened and furious” about the footage. He has said that “all the guidelines were observed” and yesterday told MPs: “I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party.”
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In a tearful statement, Stratton offered her “profound” apologies for the comments she made during a mock news conference last year. “My remarks seemed to make light of the rules, rules that people were doing everything to obey,” she said. “That was never my intention. I will regret those remarks for the rest of my days and offer profound apologies to all of you.”
• Why it ended in tears for Allegra Stratton, the PM’s star hire
Under pressure from Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, in the Commons yesterday, Johnson offered to help the police investigate claims that a party was held, and said that he had asked Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, to establish what happened. He promised “consequences”, including disciplinary action, for his staff if a party did take place. It has since emerged that on December 14 about 25 people gathered in the basement of Conservative headquarters in Westminster. The event was organised by the campaign team of Shaun Bailey, who was running for mayor of London. Bailey attended the party, at which people wore festive hats and he received a Lego set as a Christmas present from a donor.
Revellers damaged a door and staff were disciplined. No 10 aides were said to have been among those present.
At the time London was in the Tier 2 level of restrictions, meaning all socialising indoors between households was banned. Hours before the party Matt Hancock, then the health secretary, gave a news conference announcing that the capital would move into Tier 3.
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Last night a Conservative Party spokesman confirmed the “unauthorised social gathering in the basement of Matthew Parker Street” and said that “formal disciplinary action was taken against the four CCHQ staff who were seconded to the Bailey campaign”.
At about the same time, a Christmas quiz is understood to have been organised for officials and Conservative advisers working for the prime minister, with invitations sent out in advance. One source said that the quiz took place in the “control centre” established at 70 Whitehall by Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, while another said that people stayed late drinking.
Downing Street sources said that the quiz was “entirely virtual” and that it therefore could not have taken place at 70 Whitehall. They conceded that some people might have taken part from their desks in communal offices.
Wine, gifts, quizzes . . . and the mother of all hangovers
Insiders said that the No 10 Christmas party on December 18 began early, with officials and political advisers gathering in the press office shortly after 6pm.
Over the course of the evening some people made speeches, enjoyed a cheese board, drank together and exchanged Secret Santa gifts. By the time it ended shortly before 2am, several of those present were said to be “rat-arsed”.
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A few rooms away Boris Johnson was working in his office, where after consulting once more with government scientists, he was coming to a critical realisation that Christmas, as planned, could no longer go ahead. Less than 24 hours later the prime minister broke the news that millions of people could not see friends and family over the festive period if they lived in other households.
The gathering, which No 10 has spent more than a week denying was a party, now poses fundamental questions for Johnson’s premiership.
At the time London was under Tier 3 restrictions, banning indoor mixing with a narrow exemption for people whose jobs required them to be at work in the office. Was Johnson aware of the event, which included some of his most senior aides and was held yards from his office? And did he himself ever break coronavirus restrictions, in particular with gatherings with his fiancée Carrie Symonds, now Carrie Johnson, in the Downing Street flat?
The Times has been given details of at least six other events which took place in Downing Street, the Cabinet Office and Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ) at a time when most of the country was under severe restrictions.
Throughout the lockdown, drinking was commonplace in No 10. Most Fridays staff would routinely drink at their desks, although those who spoke to The Times insisted that they were working while doing so. “Once a week we’d open a bottle of wine while working at their desks in the evening,” an aide said. “People were under immense pressure, everyone had lateral flow tests daily. It was a way of letting off steam.”
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The Christmas party, however, was different. A source said it had been organised days in advance on WhatsApp and with a follow-up email.
Originally it was intended for members of the press office who work together in the same large room on the ground floor. A “proper spread” of food had been brought in along with drinks, and those invited were asked to bring a Secret Santa gift for their colleagues.
It was not, they said, a party that had been organised by senior members of staff or indeed political special advisers. But in the close world of Downing Street some members of Johnson’s media team were also invited. The most senior members were understood to be involved in the preparations for the impending new Christmas restrictions.
The event was not an isolated one. At another point in December, sources say, a Christmas quiz was held for officials and Conservative advisers working in Downing Street. Invitations were sent out by email, with people asked to organise themselves into teams of about six. Many wore novelty Christmas jumpers on the day. One source said that the quiz took place in the “control centre” established in 70 Whitehall by Dominic Cummings, who had left his role as one of Johnson’s most senior advisers in November. Another source said that people stayed late drinking, and that there was much discussion the next day about the unexpectedly strong knowledge displayed by the victors.
No 10 sources were adamant that the quiz was “entirely virtual”, and denied that it took place in 70 Whitehall, but conceded that some people may have participated from desks in communal offices. A well-placed source claimed that Dan Rosenfield, Johnson’s chief of staff, attended, saying that “it was the first time many of us met him”. His appointment had been announced in late November but he did not take up the job formally until January 1 this year, raising the question of whether he could credibly claim to have been routinely mixing with the staff present.
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Another event took place at CCHQ a few days before the Christmas party. At least two dozen party aides and volunteers, who had helped Shaun Bailey, the Tories’ London mayoral candidate, held a “raucous” bash involving drinking, Christmas hats and dancing that went on late into the night. Things were said to have got so rowdy that a door was damaged. London was in Tier 2 restrictions, with a ban on indoor mixing and the rule of six applying outdoors.
Government staff are also said to have held informal leaving dos in November, when England was in a full lockdown, to mark the departures of the senior Downing Street aides Lee Cain and Cleo Watson. Christmas parties were also held at the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education.
The revelations about parties prompted fury among Tory MPs, many of whom were on the brink after a succession of sleaze allegations, Tory rebellions and government U-turns.
On Tuesday Sajid Javid, the health secretary, volunteered to do a broadcast round the next day to push the booster campaign. After a video was leaked in which Allegra Stratton, then a spokeswoman for Johnson, joked about the party, Javid is said to have made clear he would not defend the No 10 position.
One minister told The Times that the talk in the Commons tea room was of more letters of no confidence in Johnson going into Sir Graham Brady, the leader of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs. They said that the party looks “divided, hypocritical, out-of-control, out-of-touch and all the other things that voters despise”.
The situation, they said, had been compounded by the mishandling of the now former Tory MP Owen Paterson’s breach of lobbying rules, and the prime minister’s speech to business leaders last month in which he went on a digression about Peppa Pig World. “Paterson, Peppa Pig and now this is just utterly, utterly shit, avoidable, and founded in hubris,” they said. “People are fuming — even the loyal ones.”
A succession of Conservatives went on the record with concerns. Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Tories, suggested that Johnson should quit if it emerged that he knew about the party.
Yesterday Johnson used prime minister’s questions to make Stratton’s future untenable. He said that he was “sickened” by a video of her laughing at a question from Ed Oldfield, a junior adviser, about whether there had been a Christmas party in Downing Street. He announced an inquiry by Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, into the party on December 18 and promised disciplinary action if rules had been broken. Stratton’s allies say that she is “collateral damage” and a “scapegoat”.
The concern in Downing Street is that it remains unclear where the revelations will end. If there had not been a rule-breaking party it is unclear why Stratton would feel the need to resign.
Cummings, now one of Johnson’s strongest critics, suggested that Case must also investigate the Downing Street “flat party on Fri 13 November” as well as “the other flat parties and the flat’s ‘bubble’ policy”. Johnson formally denied these allegations. He is hoping that Case’s inquiry will draw matters to a close before the North Shropshire by-election next week. Given the rancour among Tory MPs and members, that may prove to be wishful thinking.
In the end Boris Johnson acted ruthlessly. After weeks of dodging questions about Downing Street’s rule-breaking Christmas party he went to the House of Commons yesterday with one overriding aim: to secure his own political survival.
He told MPs that he had been “sickened and furious” to see his aides joking about the party in a leaked video and insisted he had been “repeatedly assured” that the event on December 18 had not taken place.
He announced that the cabinet secretary had been asked to “establish all the facts and to report back as soon as possible”.
Johnson added that it went “without saying” that if rules were broken, there would be “disciplinary action for all those involved”.
His comments in effect ended the career of Allegra Stratton, whom he had handpicked to be his spokeswoman before demoting her when he decided to abandon a plan for televised TV briefings.
The remarks also potentially put in the firing line more than two dozen Downing Street staff — civil servants and political aides alike — who are understood to have attended the party.
Johnson’s hope will be that the inquiry will temper the fury of his backbench MPs who see this as yet another self-inflicted political wound. It will also allow Downing Street to stonewall any further claims and allegations by citing the now ongoing inquiry.
Yet Johnson is not out of the woods and his own inquiry could come back to haunt him. Witnesses confirm that Johnson was in the building at the time the party is supposed to have taken place, finalising plans to cancel people’s Christmas plans the following day.
Downing Street is not a big place and it is hard to conceive that the prime minister was unaware of the festivities going on around him.
Yet he has now in effect told the Commons that he was unaware of any party, and misleading the House would be extremely serious.
He will hope that the inquiry by Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, is narrow in focus. However, Case has an obligation to the civil servants in Downing Street as well as the prime minister.
If witnesses say Johnson knew about the party Case will be in a deeply invidious position.
The Metropolitan police said last night that it would not investigate the party as there was no evidence of a Covid breach and it did not investigate retrospectively. The force said it had looked at the Allegra Stratton video and a “significant amount of correspondence” it had received.
“Based on the absence of evidence and in line with our policy not to investigate retrospective breaches of such regulations, the Met will not commence an investigation at this time,” it said.
The force did not rule out acting if further information emerged and said it would consider “any evidence” from the Case inquiry.
Arguably, if Downing Street had taken a different approach from the outset, things might have been different.
All those who attended the event worked together every day anyway and were having to take regular coronavirus tests. An admission that they had had a few drinks after work might have generated a few bad headlines but certainly not this kind of crisis.
As it is, the Downing Street denials that anything untoward took place at all has come back to trouble Johnson in the most spectacular fashion.
The prime minister bought himself time and political space yesterday. He is not out of danger.
