London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Assailed by scandal, UK's Johnson fights for his job

Assailed by scandal, UK's Johnson fights for his job

Britain's Boris Johnson was fighting to shore up his premiership on Monday after his office said his birthday in 2020 was marked by a gathering in Downing Street, adding fuel to an investigation into government parties during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Johnson, who in 2019 won the biggest Conservative majority in more than 30 years, is facing a raft of accusations that he and his staff partied during the worst pandemic for a century and a complaint of racist discrimination in his party.

The new allegation come just days before an official investigation by Cabinet Office official Sue Gray into the lockdown parties is due to be published later this week.
ITV News said up to 30 people attended the June 2020 birthday event, during the first COVID lockdown, in 10 Downing Street, his central London office and residence. Social gatherings indoors were banned at the time.

The prime minister was believed to have been presented with a cake while his wife led staff in a chorus of happy birthday, it said.

Johnson's office disputed that it was a party, telling ITV: "A group of staff working in No. 10 that day gathered briefly in the Cabinet Room after a meeting to wish the prime minister a happy birthday."

"He was there for less than 10 minutes," it said.

ITV said there was another gathering in Downing Street the evening before his birthday. Johnson's office said that was "totally untrue".

Johnson has given a variety of explanations about the previous allegations of parties: first he said no rules had been broken but then he apologised to the British people for the apparent hypocrisy of such gatherings.

Police officers who guard Downing Street have been interviewed by Gray and have given "extremely damning" evidence, the Telegraph newspaper reported, citing an unidentified source.

"Johnson has completely lost his authority," Nick Timothy, who served as Downing Street chief of staff to Johnson's Conservative predecessor Theresa May, wrote in the Telegraph.

"The collapse in Johnson's authority is causing widespread political dysfunction and further danger for the Conservatives," he said. "Johnson is no longer popular, he is no longer powerful."

Johnson has denied an allegation that he was told a "bring your own booze" lockdown gathering on May 20, 2020, which he says he thought was a work event, was inappropriate.

His former senior adviser Dominic Cummings - now a harsh critic - said on Monday he was answering questions from Gray in writing.

DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINT


Toppling Johnson would leave Britain in limbo for months just as the West deals with the Ukraine crisis and the world's fifth largest economy grapples with a once-in-a-generation inflationary wave.

To trigger a leadership challenge, 54 of the 359 Conservative MPs in parliament must submit letters of no confidence.

Leading rivals within the Conservative Party include Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, 41, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, 46.

Johnson on Monday ordered an inquiry into allegations by a lawmaker who said she was fired from a ministerial job in the government partly because her Muslim faith was making colleagues uncomfortable.

Nusrat Ghani, 49, who lost her job as a junior transport minister in February 2020, told the Sunday Times that she had been told by a "whip" - an enforcer of parliamentary discipline - that her "Muslimness" had been raised as an issue in her sacking.

The government's chief whip, Mark Spencer, said he was the person at the centre of Ghani's allegations. He said they were completely false and defamatory.

"I have never used those words attributed to me," he said.

Johnson met Ghani to discuss the "extremely serious" allegations in July 2020, a spokesperson from the prime minister's office said on Sunday.

Downing Street said that when the allegations were first made, Johnson recommended she make a formal complaint to the Conservative Campaign Headquarters.

"She did not take up this offer," Downing Street said.

Ghani's allegation came after one of her Conservative colleagues said he would meet police to discuss accusations that government whips had attempted to "blackmail" lawmakers suspected of trying to force Johnson from office.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×