Boris Johnson’s Sister Rachel Defends Prime Minister Over Downing Street Parties

Boris Johnson's sister, Rachel Johnson, has defended the Prime Minister following claims he attended parties at Downing Street during lockdown last year.

Downing Street has been accused of hosting two 'boozy' parties on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral last year.

Eye witnesses have told The Telegraph about how there were two events thrown at Number 10 on 16 April, despite lockdown rules preventing such behaviour at the time.

One such event was reportedly a leaving do for the Prime Minister's director of communications, James Slack.

There was also a bunch of Downing Street staff who gathered for the leaving party and they eventually headed out to the garden with their drinks.

'Excessive alcohol' was drunk, it has been alleged, and guests danced at points during the gatherings that stretched late into the night - well beyond midnight, according to one source.

However, Rachel Johnson has now broken her silence about the accusations made against her brother and his government on LBC Radio.

She said: "As you might have guessed it hasn't been the quietest, calmest of weeks in the Johnson family.

"I didn't see much of the Prime Minister and his family during lockdown. The times I did see him, he was completely compliant.

"He dotted every i, he crossed every t. If there was rule of six, there were six.

"What I didn't see was all of the things you were reading about. For example, his birthday, is was me, my three brothers."

She continued: "That was six people. And I have to tell you something else about my brother character.

"I mean you've been seeing the front pages, it couldn't have been worse. You know, suitcases of booze going into downing street from the Co-op on the strand.

"I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that he never once turned to me or any member of my family and said 'I tell you what, less have an office party, I tell you what, let's have a party'.

"I mean, if anything, he would say 'let's play reading' when we were growing up, or even in our twenties or 'who can memorise the most poems from the Oxford book of verse.

"Look, I'm just telling you what I saw, I'm just letting you know what I saw over lockdown and what I know of my brother's character.

"To my mind if he did go out into the garden and he's told us he did, for him that would have been work.

"He may have had a drink, I don't know."