UK newspaper publishes photo of Boris Johnson at ‘wine and cheese’ lockdown gathering
- Photo shows Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a dozen other people drinking wine in the garden of his Downing Street residence
- Garden gathering was reportedly in May 2020, when Covid restrictions forbidding such gatherings were in force
Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Sunday published a photograph of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and more than a dozen other people drinking wine in the garden of his Downing Street residence which it said was taken during a Covid-19 lockdown in May 2020.
In response, his office said there were staff meetings in the garden that day and the Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said “I don’t think it was a party”.
Johnson has been hit by a string of media stories in recent weeks over alleged Christmas parties in government offices, including his own, last year in breach of Covid-19 lockdowns and has ordered an investigation.
The reports have dismayed voters who were told by government to sacrifice their own Christmas events last year, and who face the possibility of being told to curb their Christmas plans for a second year running as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly.
The picture published by The Guardian was reported to be from May 2020, not long after Johnson was discharged from hospital where he had spent several nights in intensive care with Covid-19.
It shows Johnson with his wife Carrie, who appears to be holding their newborn son, and two other people at a table on a terrace in the Downing Street garden with cheese and wine.
Nearby is another table of four other people, and a short distance away is a larger group standing on the grass around a table with bottles of wine.
