Downing Street staff who received fines for attending the same lockdown parties as Boris Johnson have reacted with fury after the prime minister escaped further sanctions.
“It’s a joke,” one No 10 source told The Independent, saying that the prime minister had “told people to ‘let their hair down’ and enjoy their drinks which they’d earned for ‘beating back the virus’”, adding: “He’s a man of little or no integrity.”
Announcing the conclusion of their Operation Hillman probe on Thursday, the Metropolitan Police said a total of 126 fines had been issued to 83 people, over events spanning eight dates between May 2020 and April 2021.
A leading expert on Covid laws, barrister Adam Wagner, also questioned the “inconsistency” of the fines, after it emerged some junior staff have amassed as many as five fines while the PM and other senior figures avoided fresh action.
It is now expected that Sue Gray, the senior civil servant carrying out a wider report into the scandal, will publish her findings as soon as next week.
