A Conservative MP has sparked a fresh partygate row after suggesting that NHS workers also broke Covid rules during the pandemic.
Richard Bacon, who has held the safe seat of South Norfolk since 2001, tried to justify boozy lockdown-busting parties in Boris Johnson’s Government by implying that health staff across the UK also flouted the restrictions.
Speaking to BBC regional news programme Look East, he said: ‘I am not happy with the revelations, but I think they were working under huge pressure – you haven’t investigated it, but there are 1.5million people who work in the NHS and I bet if you tried hard enough you could find some people letting their hair down who had been working 24-7.
‘We were under extraordinary pressure in a global pandemic and we didn’t really know what we were dealing with.’
He added: ‘The fact he [Mr Johnson] goes round thanking his staff for working very, very hard, 18 hours a day trying to keep the show on the road while we were in a global pandemic, is not a crime and I don’t think it is something he should be condemned for and I certainly don’t think it is something he should resign for – I support Boris.’
Seizing on Mr Bacon’s remarks, Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting called on the MP to apologise for his ‘grotesque insult’.
Also taking to Twitter, former England ace Gary Lineker raged: ‘Hospitals are really big buildings. Nurses and doctors were working really long hours. Some of them, no doubt, left their jobs and, yet, somehow still managed not to have a party after work and follow the rules that they didn’t actually make’.
One social media user called Mr Bacon’s comments a ‘poor take of the day’, while another thundered: ‘Disgraceful comment from #RichardBacon MP, an insult to all #NHS workers. I need to declare an interest as a member of my family works in the NHS, and I find his comments sickening, insulting and arrogant’.
Another added: ‘I have never been so angry about comments about our NHS workers then this fool has been made.’
Sue Gray’s partygate report laid bare the raucous culture of drinking that led to lockdown breaches in Downing Street, including boozy fights, vomiting and even karaoke bashes.
However, others called the 37-page dossier – which contained nine photos including those of Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak at the PM’s lockdown-busting birthday party in June 2020 – a ‘damp squib’. And the ‘coup threat’ to the Tory leader appearing to have eased.
Its publication also led to fresh claims of a ‘cover-up’ after it emerged Ms Gray abandoned her investigation into an ‘Abba party’ in the Downing Street flat the night Dominic Cummings was ousted in November 2020, judging it was not ‘appropriate or proportionate’ to probe the bash after Scotland Yard launched its investigation.
The PM yesterday refused to resign despite accepting the ‘bitter and painful’ conclusions of the senior official’s inquiry that revealed lurid details of partying in Government and of a ‘failure of leadership’.
He bullishly 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, Mr 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’
Also taking to Twitter, former England ace Gary Lineker raged: ‘Hospitals are really big buildings. Nurses and doctors were working really long hours. Some of them, no doubt, left their jobs and, yet, somehow still managed not to have a party after work and follow the rules that they didn’t actually make’.
One social media user called Mr Bacon’s comments a ‘poor take of the day’, while another thundered: ‘Disgraceful comment from #RichardBacon MP, an insult to all #NHS workers. I need to declare an interest as a member of my family works in the NHS, and I find his comments sickening, insulting and arrogant’.
Another added: ‘I have never been so angry about comments about our NHS workers then this fool has been made.’
Sue Gray’s partygate report laid bare the raucous culture of drinking that led to lockdown breaches in Downing Street, including boozy fights, vomiting and even karaoke bashes.
However, others called the 37-page dossier – which contained nine photos including those of Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak at the PM’s lockdown-busting birthday party in June 2020 – a ‘damp squib’. And the ‘coup threat’ to the Tory leader appearing to have eased.
Its publication also led to fresh claims of a ‘cover-up’ after it emerged Ms Gray abandoned her investigation into an ‘Abba party’ in the Downing Street flat the night Dominic Cummings was ousted in November 2020, judging it was not ‘appropriate or proportionate’ to probe the bash after Scotland Yard launched its investigation.
The PM yesterday refused to resign despite accepting the ‘bitter and painful’ conclusions of the senior official’s inquiry that revealed lurid details of partying in Government and of a ‘failure of leadership’.
He bullishly 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, Mr 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’.
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 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’.
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