Parties needed for morale, says Boris Johnson as rebellion grows

The British Prime Minister said he had been ‘taken aback’ to be issued with a fine by police for attending one of the events.

Boris Johnson visits Durham last week. Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson has said that he was justified in attending leaving parties during lockdown while other people were unable to say goodbye to dying relatives because it was important to “keep morale high” in Downing Street.

The British Prime Minister said he had been “taken aback” to be issued with a fine by police for attending one of the events.

In an interview with the website Mumsnet, Mr Johnson said that despite the “totally miserable” experience of the parties scandal he would not “abandon the project” and resign, adding that he was taking the “responsible” approach.

He also insisted that he had not eaten cake at the lockdown-breaking birthday celebration in the cabinet room for which he was fined, describing it as a “miserable event”.

Mr Johnson repeated his apology for the gatherings in Downing Street after it was pointed out that a teacher would have lost their job if they had broken the law and he was asked why the same did not apply to him.

“If people look at the event in question, it felt to me like a work event,” he replied. “I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and, you know, I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN (fixed-penalty notice), but of course I paid it. “I think that on why am I still here, I’m still here because we’ve got huge pressures economically. We’ve got to get on, we’ve got the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, and we’ve got a massive agenda to deliver, which I was elected to deliver.”

He added that he could not see how it would be responsible to abandon the project on which he had embarked.

When told that some believed he had lost the country’s trust, Mr Johnson replied: “Let’s see about that and, yes, I’m not going to deny the whole thing hasn’t been a totally miserable experience for people in government, and we’ve got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made, and we’ve got to move forward.”

Mr Johnson was asked about his claim that he did not break any rules by going to leaving parties because he did so in a work capacity. He attended at least three leaving drinks, including one where others were fined.

“What I thought I was doing was simply doing what is right for a leader in any circumstances, and that’s to thank people for their service. If you don’t do that, people feel underappreciated and undermotivated. This was a time when we had to keep morale high, when the whole place was under a huge amount of pressure.”

The Times