Two more Tory MPs today broke cover to call for Boris Johnson to quit over Partygate as ministers insist the PM ‘got the big calls right’.
Backbencher John Baron said the Sue Gray report showed a ‘shameful pattern of misbehaviour’, suggesting the PM had ‘knowingly misled’ Parliament.
Meanwhile, David Simmonds – whose Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner seat neighbours Mr Johnson’s own – said he no longer had the confidence of the public and should step down.
The intervention came as No10 chief of staff Steve Barclay insisted the PM is ‘honourable’ despite the grim picture of staff boozing, fighting and vomiting in offices while the rest of the country was in a brutal lockdown.
He appealed for MPs to move on, saying Mr Johnson is focused on the Ukraine war and cost-of-living crisis.
The trickle came after only two MPs – Julian Sturdy and Angela Richardson – urged the premier to resign in the immediate aftermath of the report yesterday.
Others appear to be holding off after Ms Gray only levelled limited personal criticism, and police decided against adding to his tally of one fixed penalty fine.
However, many Conservatives are still deeply concerned that keeping Mr Johnson in post could spell disaster at the next election, with polls showing that two-thirds of Britons believe he should quit.
Mr Johnson’s former chief aide Will Walden accused him of acting like a ‘toddler’ this morning, saying he still did not seem to accept the conclusions of the inquiries.
The acting Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Stephen House is due to be grilled by a London Assembly committee on why the premier was fined for his tame birthday celebration in the Cabinet Room in June 2020, but not any of the other events he attended.
And questions still remain over the fate of former No10 private secretary Martin Reynolds, who has been tipped as the next ambassador to Saudi Arabia despite Ms Gray finding that he had boasted of ‘getting away with’ a BYOB bash in Downing Street.
Mr Baron said in a statement: ‘For me the most serious charge against the Prime Minister is that of knowingly misleading Parliament.
‘Given the scale of rule-breaking in No 10, I can not accept that the Prime Minister was unaware. Therefore, his repeated assurances in Parliament that there was no rule-breaking is simply not credible.’
He added: ‘Having always said I would consider all the available evidence before deciding, I’m afraid the Prime Minister no longer enjoys my support – I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt.’
Mr Simmonds, who has been heavily critical of the PM but stopped short of urging him to resign, said: ‘Having reflected on what he said, and the views of the constituents and my Conservative association, it is clear that while the Government and our policies enjoy the confidence of the public, the Prime Minister does not.
‘Accordingly, it is time for him to step down so that new leadership can take forward the important work of the Government in ensuring that our people and country prosper.’
In a round of interviews, Mr Barclay was asked if Mr Johnson tells lies, and replied: ‘No he doesn’t.’
He added: ‘He is focused on our response to Ukraine. He is focused on the huge challenge economically for families, for your viewers, in terms of the cost of energy, the cost of food, he is getting on with the job.
‘He got the big calls right, including during Covid. The fastest rollout (of vaccines). Last year we had the fastest growing economy in the G7.
‘He has been getting the big calls right but he accepted, in terms of some of these incidents, that there were lessons to be learned.’
A bullish Mr Johnson yesterday renewed his apology for lockdown breaches in Whitehall, but stressed that he had been ‘working’ as he denied knowing about raucous behaviour by aides.
He played down the significance of his own fine, saying his offence had been to ‘stand by his desk’ in his birthday while eating snacks with wife Carrie, Rishi Sunak and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.
Quizzed by the 1922 committee of Tory MPs behind closed doors last night, he justified attending Downing Street leaving dos by saying it was his ‘duty’.
He insisted it was necessary to meet with departing No10 officials to ‘thank them for their service’, while adding that it was ‘one of the essential duties of leadership’.
According to one Conservative source, the PM is reported to have said that Downing Street staff were not ‘partying as if it was Saturday night in July in Ibiza, they were actually working extremely hard – flat out’.
The PM said that, after months of investigations, it was now time to ‘move on’ and ‘focus on the priorities of the British people… easing the hardship caused by the rising costs people are facing’.
As the government attempts to shift the focus, Rishi Sunak will today unveil a £10billion package of cost-of-living support.
The Chancellor’s package, partly funded by a windfall tax on the oil and gas giants, will include grants to help low income families with energy bills, together with help for the so-called ‘squeezed middle’ – potentially council tax discounts.
Mr Johnson told MPs he had been ‘appalled’ by lurid details of bad behaviour by officials at drunken parties. But he said it had been his duty to gather staff to ‘briefly’ attend leaving dos for senior officials working flat out on the pandemic – and he said this view had been ‘vindicated by the investigation’.
The PM also turned the tables on Sir Keir Starmer, who called on the PM to ‘pack his bags’, despite the fact he himself is under police investigation for an alleged breach of lockdown rules.
In a reference to the Labour leader’s beer and curry event with activists in Durham last year, Mr Johnson mocked his opponent as ‘Sir Beer Korma’.
Mr Johnson’s Tory critics had long seen the publication of the report as the pretext for a coup against his leadership.
But the lack of new evidence directly against him saw the plot fizzle out.
One image showed the PM and Chancellor a few feet apart next to a table with pitchers of juice and M&S sandwiches.
The report detailed a number of events that appeared to include clear breaches at lockdown restrictions.
At a farewell party for a senior adviser in June 2020, Ms Gray reported ‘excessive’ alcohol consumption by some, leading one official to be sick and others to end the night in an ‘altercation’.
In a statement, the campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: ‘Just as we will never forget being apart from those closest to us whilst they passed away, or having to hold miserable funerals with only a handful of people, millions will never forgive them for the disrespect they’ve shown.’
Sir Keir said the report by Whitehall ethics chief Ms Gray would stand as a monument to hubris and arrogance