Friday, 29 March, 2024, 5:19 PM
Advance Search
Home

Calls grow for Johnson to resign over lockdown ‘parties’

Published : Sunday, 16 January, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 311

LONDON, Jan 15: Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure to get a grip on the drip feed of revelations about No 10 rule-breaking as he fights to stay in office. Former Conservative minister Tobias Ellwood said the Prime Minister must "lead or step aside", said: "We need leadership."
The comments by the chairman of the Commons Defence Committee came as further claims emerged of regular "wine time Friday" gatherings in Downing Street while coronavirus rules were in place. The Mirror said the weekly events are a long-standing No 10 tradition, including under previous administrations, and they continued after Covid restrictions were introduced prohibiting indoor mixing between households.
The newspaper said staff bought a £142 fridge to keep their bottles of alcohol chilled, and the Prime Minister was aware of the socialising. A No 10 spokeswoman said: "There is an ongoing investigation to establish the facts around the nature of gatherings, including attendance, setting and the purpose with reference to adherence to the guidance at the time. "The findings will be made public in due course."
Ministers have called on disgruntled Tory MPs to wait until senior civil servant Sue Gray has published her investigation into claims about lockdown-busting parties in Government. It comes as hundreds of angry constituents contact their
    MPs. The government has urged people to reserve judgement until senior civil servant Sue Gray's inquiry is finished.
But Andrew Bridgen, Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, said: "I don't need to see what Sue Gray says to know that for me Boris Johnson has lost the moral authority to lead the country. "If there's another emergency where he has to call on the public to make sacrifices, he doesn't have that authority. That makes his position in my book, as prime minister, completely untenable."
Bridgen is the fifth Conservative MP to publicly declare they have written to the chairman of the 1922 Committee - which organises Tory leadership contests - to say they have no confidence in the prime minister. Fifty-four Conservative MPs have to write a letter to trigger a vote.
Ahead of Boris Johnson's apology on Wednesday, Mr Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East and one-time defence minister, said Mr Johnson needed to "show some contrition" and get a grip of the situation - or he would be "out of office". Another former minister said: "Johnson is toast... if you were the chief whip looking at him you'd say he's not fit to do any other jobs in government, you wouldn't make him a junior minister, he doesn't work hard enough."
Two other parties were held in April 2021 as Queen Elizabeth II prepared to bury Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years. Downing Street sent apologies to Buckingham Palace, calling them "deeply regrettable". But those were not isolated events, according to Saturday's Daily Mirror, which published a photograph of a wine cooler being delivered to a Downing Street back door in December 2020.
It said staff would stock the fridge with suitcase-loads of alcohol, and Johnson would often drop by to their "Wine time Fridays". "The idea that he didn't know there were drinks is total nonsense," the newspaper quoted one source as saying.  "If the PM tells you to 'let off steam', he's basically saying this is fine." In response, a Downing Street spokesperson said the government was awaiting Gray's inquiry "to establish the facts around the nature of gatherings" during the pandemic.
But at least five Conservative MPs say they have already filed letters demanding a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. After the Mirror report, Tory backbencher Andrew Bridgen said Johnson had "lost the moral authority to lead".
He had presided over a staff culture of "one rule for them, and the rest of us do as we're told", Bridgen told BBC television. Most cabinet members have rallied round Johnson but the support of some, including powerful finance minister Rishi Sunak, has been distinctly lukewarm.
Pensions minister Guy Opperman broke ranks to argue that Johnson "needs to change his ways", describing the personal toll that observing the lockdown rules had inflicted on his family.    -AFP









Latest News
Most Read News
Editor : Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury
Published by the Editor on behalf of the Observer Ltd. from Globe Printers, 24/A, New Eskaton Road, Ramna, Dhaka.
Editorial, News and Commercial Offices : Aziz Bhaban (2nd floor), 93, Motijheel C/A, Dhaka-1000.
Phone: PABX- 41053001-06; Online: 41053014; Advertisement: 41053012.
E-mail: info©dailyobserverbd.com, news©dailyobserverbd.com, advertisement©dailyobserverbd.com, For Online Edition: mailobserverbd©gmail.com
  [ABOUT US]     [CONTACT US]   [AD RATE]   Developed & Maintenance by i2soft