Johnson says some people argue you could do without rules. But we were facing a pandemic of the kind we had never seen before. All the scientific advice said non-pharmaceutical interventions were needed.

Johnson claimed that staff in his press office thought they were “working around the clock” when they were partying in No 10. In his Commons statement he justified his own attendance at leaving do events on the grounds that they were work, but he said he could not defend what happened later.  But, when asked why his press office had said that no parties took place even though the parties had actually taken place in the press office, Johnson said his press team thought what they were doing was allowed. He said:
 I don’t know exactly what they what they told you, but having talked to people in this building about what happened and what was said, it’s my strong impression that they genuinely believed what they were doing was working, and they were working around the clock. They did not think that what they were doing was in conflict with the rules. That’s what they told me.