Partygate video evidence emerges
Video evidence has emerged of conservative party officials non-socially distanced at a Christmas party in December 2020 while on the same day the government was telling everyone else to remain indoors and adhere to social distancing rules.
This revelation came within days of an inquiry which found former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson guilty of lying to the Parliament and the nation about rule breaking parties at the time.
And we absolutely cannot afford to relax the social distancing measures that we have in place. We cannot relax our discipline now.
Matt Hancock, Former Health Secretary
And that's what everyone did when swathes of the country, including London, were banned from socializing indoors.
One year ago. We all saw Allegra Stratton, Boris Johnson's then press secretary, joking about flouting lockdown rules, in a news conference rehearsal.
It was a business meeting, is this recorded, this fictional party was a business meeting; and it was not socially distanced.
Allegra Stratton, Former Downing Street Press Secretary
Still, Boris Johnson insisted that no rules had been broken when he appeared before the House of Commons, just across the river from the National COVID Memorial Wall, which bears the names of thousands of people who died without a loved one by their side because of those very same rules.
This photo is from the same party. Two people in it have received honors from the former prime minister, conservative mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, and Ben Mallet, the mayoral election campaign director.
Calls for them to be removed from the Honors list are growing.
The Honors list suggests that you get rewarded for laughing in the face of the lockdown, a lockdown which really created psychological misery for millions and millions of people. Apparently, you can get an honor for doing that. The message is quite clear. do as we say not as we do.
Lembit Opik, Former MP
In the immediate aftermath an apology was issued by the Secretary of State for Housing and Communities, Michael Gove.
I just want to apologize, to everyone, really.
Michel Gove, Secretary of State for Housing and Communities
But it was hardly enough to allay public anger.
My mother died during the lockdown, not of COVID, but largely in solitude. We obeyed the rules. And I could have spent much more time with my mother in her last two years if I'd done what the government did, what politicians did; Ignore the law. As a result, there's an understandable rage, and, to an extent, grief, that the very people who told us to lock our doors threw their own doors open.
Lembit Opik, Former MP
The Metropolitan Police are looking into the video while the Prime Minister has kept a low profile; nonetheless, one wonders how the Rule Breakers got away with it for so long.
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