LONDON: The British Guardian newspaper on Sunday published a photo of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and more than a dozen others drinking wine in the street residence park which he said was taken during the Lockdown Covid-19 on May 2020.
In response, his office said there was a staff meeting in the park that day.
Johnson has been hit by a series of media stories in recent weeks over alleged Christmas parties in government offices, including his own, last year violating the locking Covid-19 and had ordered investigations.
These reports have disappointed voters who were told by the government to sacrifice their own Christmas events last year, and who faced the possibility of being told to curb their Christmas plan for the second year that was running when the Omicron variant spread quickly.
The image published by Guardian was reported from May 2020, not long after Johnson was dismissed from the hospital where he had spent a few nights in intensive care with Covid-19.
It shows Johnson with his wife Carrie, who seems to hold their newborn son, and two people at a table on the terrace in the street park with cheese and wine.
Nearby there is another table of four other people, and a short distance is a larger group standing on the grass around a table with a bottle of wine.
Asked about the image, a Downing Street spokesman said: “Work meetings often occur in street parks in the summer months. On this occasion there was a staff meeting after a press conference No. 10.”
“Downing Street is the home of the Prime Minister and his workplace. The Prime Minister’s wife lives in No. 10 and therefore also legally using the garden.”
The newspaper said that the photo was divided by it after Johnson’s office last week denied a social event had happened, said Downing Street staff worked in the park in the afternoon and evening.
On that day, Matt Hancock’s Health Secretary had given a press conference that urged people to hold on to the rules and did not take advantage of good weather during the weekend to socialize in groups, reported.