Boris Johnson’s staff denied there was a 2020 Christmas party — except they joked about it on camera

Now there’s leaked video, not of the alleged party itself, but of a mock news conference staged by Boris Johnson’s former press secretary, about the party, four days after the alleged festivities.

The Christmas party scandal has been bubbling on the back burner for a week — and now it could explode. The story plays into assertions that Johnson and his government cannot be trusted, that it is one rule for the people and another rule for the rulers.

Johnson opened a particularly boisterous session of Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday with an apology. “I understand and share the anger up and down the country at seeing Number 10 staff seeming to make light of lockdown measures, and I can understand how infuriating it must be to think that people who have been setting the rules have not been following the rules because I was also furious to see that clip,” he said.

But the prime minister added that he had been “repeatedly assured” that there was no party and that no covid rules had been broken.

He announced that he asked his cabinet secretary to investigate the matter and promised, “it goes without saying that if those rules were broken then there will be disciplinary action for all those involved.”

That hardly settled the matter.

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, told the prime minister his apology “raises more questions than answers.”

Starmer charged that “millions of people” who followed the rules last Christmas “now think the prime minister was taking them for fools, that they were lied to.”

The Labour lawmaker said Johnson’s staff, “knew there was a party, they knew it was against the rules, they knew they couldn’t admit it, and they thought it was funny. It is obvious what happened.”

The British take their very merry holiday parties very seriously — and to learn that 10 Downing Street might have been whooping it up as the rest of the country was told to hunker down really grates.

In Parliament, Johnson’s critics hammered away on their assertion that 10 Downing was partying while ordinary people followed the rules — and were denied visits to nursing homes and to see sick or dying relatives in hospital.

The revelations come just as Johnson is reportedly set to announce new restrictions to curb the spread of the omicron variant.

David Lammy, the Labour Party’s point person on foreign affairs, appeared on the BBC on Wednesday morning, unlike Sajid Javid, the health secretary, who had canceled his appearance after the footage was leaked. “It’s one rule for them and another for the rest of us,” Lammy said.

The British government usually puts forward a minister to do a round of interviews in the morning. Before canceling, Javid would have been expected to mark the anniversary of Britain becoming the first country in the West to administer vaccines outside of clinical trials. He would also have been expected to urge people to get a booster shot — or jab — amid concerns about the new variant.

The Christmas party affair has attracted the attention of London’s Metropolitan Police, which is now reviewing the footage in relation to “alleged breaches” of covid-19 regulations at the time.

The leaked video clip, obtained by ITV news, shows a mock news conference staged by Johnson’s former top spokeswoman, who was answering questions lobbed at her by fellow staffers, in a practice round as they prepared for the real deal.

The clip is not definitive proof, but it is damning — as it appears to suggest that staffers knew all about the party and were cracking jokes about it.

Asked if there was such a fete, then-press secretary Allegra Stratton, replies: “This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced.”

Pressed for an answer in the rehearsal by Johnson’s top aide, who was playing the role of a journalist, Stratton says, “I went home.” Everyone is laughing.

Asked if the prime minister would condone such a party, Strattons asks the room: “What’s the answer?”

Finally, another aide jokes that “it wasn’t a party, it was cheese and wine” and Stratton laughs and asks: “Is cheese and wine all right?”

On Dec. 18, 2020, a Friday, the day many British media outlets have been claiming the party took place, parties in London were banned. The official guidance stated, “you must not have a work Christmas lunch or party where that is a primarily social activity.”

The following day, Johnson announced a tightening of rules, effectively canceling Christmas for millions.

The images from the mock news conference were plastered across the British papers on Wednesday.

“A Sick Joke” ran a front-page headline on the Daily Mail; the Metro newspaper scolded the “No. 10 Party Clowns,” referring to the prime minister’s office, located at 10 Downing Street.

Those who lost loved ones in the pandemic said that it was deeply upsetting.

“It’s disgusting,” Rivka Gottlieb, who lost her father in the first lockdown, told the BBC. “It shows the utter contempt they hold the British public in,” she said.

During the first lockdown in 2020, Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s then top aide, often called “Boris’s brain,” flouted strict rules and damaged public trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic. He drove six hours north, to shelter at his family farm, after he and his wife were infected by the virus. Later he drove to a nearby castle, known for sightseeing, in order, he claimed, to test his eye sight.