POLL: Downing Street joked about Christmas party during restrictions - what do you think?

Leaked footage from No 10’s £2.6 million press briefing room emerged on Monday night which showed former press secretary Allegra Stratton laughing as she appeared to rehearse answers to questions over a lockdown-busting Christmas party.

The video, which is reported to be from December 22 last year, refers to a party on “Friday” – which would have been December 18, the same day The Daily Mirror reported there was a staff party where games were played, food and drinks were served, and revelries went on past midnight.

She says: "This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced."

No 10 initially did not say the reports were inaccurate but said all rules had been followed, before later denying any party had taken place.

But the emergence of the video will put Boris Johnson under increasing pressure as he faces Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

The challenge for Downing Street was laid bare by no Cabinet minister being offered to represent the Government in morning broadcast interviews, and there were questions over whether a suggested press conference to mark one year since the first coronavirus vaccine was delivered would go ahead.

As well as Health Secretary Sajid Javid pulling out of national interviews, vaccines minister Maggie Throup is understood to have pulled out of a planned round of regional television interviews.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy called on the Prime Minister to “come clean” with the British public.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It really is quite unacceptable that this is seen as something that is sort of humorous, or something that isn’t serious, or something that suggests that there can be one rule for a Prime Minister and those in No 10 and another rule for the British public.”

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