The British Prime Minister’s youthful and fun-loving wife, Carrie Johnson, has offered an apology for breaching Covid-19 rules in September 2020 when she was photographed hugging a friend at a West End club at a time strict social-distancing rules were in place.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s wife told the Sunday Telegraph: “Mrs Johnson was one of a group of six seated outside celebrating a friend’s engagement. Mrs Johnson regrets the momentary lapse in judgement in briefly hugging her friend for a photograph.”
Her apology coincides with a move by the Liberal Democrats to add further pressure on Boris Johnson by tabling a no-confidence motion against him.
Since Boris, 57, won an 80-seat majority in the Commons in December 2019, the motion has no chance of being passed since Tory MPs realise many of them would almost certainly lose in marginal constituencies if a general election were to be held tomorrow.
But Liberal Democrat leader Si Ed Davey seized the opportunity to further embarrass both Boris and, more importantly, many Tory MPs who are wondering whether he is the right man to continue to lead the Tories.
Davey twisted the knife by saying: “By remaining in Number 10, Boris Johnson is a threat to the health of the nation — no one will take anything he says seriously and that is simply unacceptable during a pandemic.
“Conservative MPs should not only support our motion of no confidence but they should pressure Jacob Rees-Mogg (leader of the Commons) to give the motion time for a vote and soon. The country deserves a chance to move on from this deceitful Prime Minister.”
However, a former cabinet minister who was sacked by Boris has said that now is the “wrong time” to be considering changing the leader of the Conservative Party.
Dr Liam Fox, the former trade secretary, said: “I did not vote for Boris Johnson in the last Conservative leadership election. He subsequently sacked me from the cabinet, as he was perfectly entitled to do. So, I cannot be accused of being a sycophant in writing that this is absolutely the wrong time for the Conservative Party to think about a change of leader.”
Normally, what Carrie, 33, did would be dismissed as a minor misdemeanour but in the current volatile political climate all such mistakes are being amplified by the media, not least The Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph.
The latter led with the story: “Carrie Johnson broke Covid rules.” It reported that Carrie “was photographed breaking Covid-19 social distancing rules days after the public was warned that it was ‘critical’ to follow the guidance”.
Despite a public warning from her husband that “you should keep your distance from anyone you don’t live with”, she was “pictured embracing a close friend while the pair celebrated the friend’s engagement at a private members’ club in London’s West End.”
“The pair seemingly shared a joke as they posed for the camera while sitting next to each other on a sofa on the club’s outdoor roof terrace”.
Carrie “appeared to have her arm around the friend, Anna Pinder, and one of her legs draped over her leg. Ms Pinder’s hands were clasped together in her lap. The embrace, seemingly initiated by Mrs Johnson, stands in stark contrast to the isolation rules members of the public rigidly stuck to”.
The two women, friends from their days when they were at Godolphin and Latymer, a private school in West London, were photographed at The Conduit, a club in Covent Garden. Carrie was celebrating news of her friend’s engagement on September 17, 2020, which was a day when 3,395 new cases of Covid were recorded.
Speaking at a Downing Street news conference on September 9, Boris had said: “If we are to beat the virus then everyone, at all times, should limit social contact as much as possible and minimise interactions with other households.
“It is safer to meet outdoors and you should keep your distance from anyone you don't live with, even if they are close friends or family.” On September 7, Matt Hancock, then the health secretary, also warned that the recent increase in transmission was “among more affluent younger people”.
Hancock later quit his post after leaked images showed the MP in a clinch with an aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his ministerial office. Boris had previously left his wife of 25 years, Marina Wheeler, when she was stricken with cancer, for Carrie. Hancock has now left Martha, his wife of 15 years, for Gina.