Dominic Raab has undermined No 10’s claim that Boris Johnson was working while enjoying wine and cheese with staff in the No 10 garden during lockdown – saying it was “after” work had finished.
Downing Street has defended the get-together – in May last year – on the grounds that “there were staff meetings after a No 10 press conference”, even though the group is eating and drinking.
Mr Raab also defended the event, insisting it complied with social mixing rules during the first lockdown because No 10 is a place of work and the garden is “used for work meetings”.
But the deputy prime minister added: “Sometimes they’ll have a drink after a long day or a long week.”
Mr Raab also said, of a picture of the gathering: “I think there’s a lot of exhausted people and they, as people do in work, have a drink after – after the formal business had been done.”
On BBC Breakfast, he said it had been “a gruelling day”, insisting: “This wasn’t a social occasion. It was staff having a drink after a busy set of work meetings and the pressures of the day.”
