Piers Morgan has claimed that Boris Johnson is “toast” after leaked footage showed senior Downing Street staff joking about holding a banned party last Christmas.
Amid reports that an illegal gathering took place at No 10 last year, ITV News obtained a video from a rehearsal briefing last December in which then-government spokesperson Allegra Stratton took on mock questions posed by staff.
In the clip, Stratton joked that the alleged party “was not socially distanced” and suggested passing it off as “a business meeting”. At the time, social mixing between households was banned and the number of people in one indoor space was limited to six by law.
On Tuesday (7 December), former Good Morning Britain presenter Morgan shared a series of tweets condemning the video, tweeting: “Wow. The big lie exposed, in their own damning words. And look how funny they all found it. I doubt the British public will find this quite so amusing.
“Boris Johnson is continuing to lie about last year’s illicit Christmas party at No10 – even when we’ve all now seen his own spokeswoman on video laughing about it & wondering how best to lie about it to the media. Even by his standards, this is absolutely shameful.”
He later added: “The British public’s been bizarrely forgiving of Boris Johnson’s myriad lies as Prime Minister. But they won’t forgive his sniggering, mocking No10 staff brazenly plotting to lie about a Christmas party he’d banned anyone else from having as 1000s were dying. He’s toast.”
In the video, which was filmed on 22 December 2020, Stratton is seen quietly mouthing “this is recorded” to the other No 10 staff, and switches to referring to the party as “fictional”.
The government is yet to comment on the newly released footage.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has said it was “shameful” for the government to “lie and laugh about those lies”.
He added: “The prime minister now needs to come clean, and apologise. It cannot be one rule for the Conservatives and another for everyone else.”
