Johnson vows changes after lockdown parties report condemns UK leadership failures
SMA NEWS – LONDON
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced renewed calls to resign on Monday after a report found that alcohol-fuelled events at his offices and residence when COVID-19 lockdown rules were in force should never have taken place.
The report by senior civil servant Sue Gray into the lockdown gatherings, which occurred when Britons were all but banned from social mixing under coronavirus restrictions, pointed to “serious failures of leadership” at the heart of the British government.
She condemned some of the behaviour in government as being “difficult to justify”, saying “the excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time”.
Johnson’s office said Gray would be asked to update her report once the police investigation concluded and it would be published. The saga has become the gravest threat to Johnson’s premiership, already under scrutiny for a series of scandals and his handling of the COVID-19 response.
Opposition politicians and some members of his own Conservative Party have called on him to resign.Johnson made a statement and answered questions for almost two hours in parliament on Monday afternoon following the report’s publication. He apologised again and pledged to make changes at his office.
“I want to say sorry. I get it and I will fix it,” he said in a raucous debate, when he was challenged by some Conservative lawmakers.One, Aaron Bell, fought back tears as he recounted the funeral held for his grandmother during the COVID lockdown.”She was a wonderful woman … I drove for three hours … only 10 people at the funeral. Many people who loved her had to watch online. I didn’t hug my siblings. I didn’t hug my parents,” he said.
“Does the prime minister think I am a fool?”
Johnson later apologised personally to Conservative lawmakers at a meeting in parliament. He promised to make changes not only to his team but to the way he engages with his party, seeking to win over some who had threatened to try to oust him.
His words were met with a handful of cheers, and some supporters said the threat of a confidence vote had waned. But Britain’s opposition politicians showed little sympathy. Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, accused Johnson of blaming everyone else but himself.
