Partygate: pictures emerge showing Boris Johnson drinking at No 10 leaving do during lockdown – live | Politics

No 10 has played down the significance of the new Partygate photographs, arguing that the Met police had access to photographs when it carried out its investigation. A No 10 spokesperson said:

The Cabinet Office and the Met Police have had access to all information relevant to their investigations, including photographs. The Met have concluded their investigation and Sue Gray will publish her report in the coming days, at which point the prime minister will address parliament in full.

ITV’s Paul Brand has obtained photographs of Boris Johnson drinking at a Downing Street event that looks very much like a party.

The pictures were taken at a leaving do for Lee Cain, the PM’s director of communications, on 13 November 2020.

The images will fuel claims that Johnson was lying when he told MPs more than a year later that all the Covid guidance was followed in Downing Street and that people abided by the rules.

Boris Johnson has been urged by a Commons committee to issue 11 corrections relating to occasions when he falsely claimed employment is higher now than it was before the pandemic.

The chair of the Commons liaison committee, Sir Bernard Jenkin, issued the effective rebuke to the prime minister after a session in March when Johnson wrongly claimed that he had already corrected the record.

The number of people in payroll employment – working for a company – is higher now than it was before the pandemic. But total employment is lower, because there has been a large fall in the number of people are who self-employed. But this has not stopped Johnson repeatedly telling MPs that overall employment is higher – despite this error being pointed out to him more than once by statistic experts.

In evidence to the committee in March, when asked about this, Johnson said that he thought No 10 had already corrected the record.

In a letter released today, responding to a letter from Johnson following up on points raised during the hearing, Jenkin says Johnson has still not said what he has done to correct the record on this point. He identifies 11 references in Hansard to Johnson telling MPs employment is higher now than before the pandemic. Jenkin goes on:

I would be grateful if you could send the committee a copy of these corrections, once they have been made.

The liaison committee is often seen as the most senior of the Commons committee because its membership comprises the chairs of all select committees.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency, may be anxious to get workers back into the office, but a large number of Britons like working from home, figures from the Office for National Statistics out this morning suggest. They show that almost a quarter of employees now describe themselves as hybrid workers – working partly in the office, and partly at home. The ONS says:

Most people who took up homeworking because of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic plan to both work from home and in the workplace (“hybrid work”) in the future, according to data from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

Workers were asked about their future plans in February 2022, after government guidance to work from home when possible was lifted in England and Scotland. More than 8 in 10 workers who had to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic said they planned to hybrid work.

Since then, the proportion of workers hybrid working has risen from 13% in early February 2022 to 24% in May 2022. The percentage working exclusively from home has fallen from 22% to 14% in the same period.

The report also says that, amongst people who had to work from home during lockdown, the proportion now planning to spend more of their time working from home in the future has gone up.

In February 2022, 84% of workers who had to work from home because of the coronavirus pandemic said they planned to carry out a mix of working at home and in their place of work in the future.

While the proportion of workers who planned to hybrid work at all has not changed much since April 2021, that hybrid working pattern has shifted more in favour of spending most working hours at home.

In February 2022, the most common hybrid working pattern that workers planned to use was working mostly from home, and sometimes from their usual place of work. 42% reported this, which is an increase from 30% in April 2021. Meanwhile, the proportion who planned to split their time equally between work and home, or work mostly from their place of work and occasionally from home, has fallen.

The proportion who planned to return to their place of work permanently fell from 11% in April 2021 to 8% in February 2022.

The ONS also says that hybrid working is particularly popular with higher earners. Almost two-thirds of people earning more than £40,000 a year work either wholly (23%) or partly (38%) at home.

This makes the Tory campaign against working from home all the more peculiar. It is not just Rees-Mogg; Boris Johnson told the Daily Mail recently that people who work from home are likely to spend too much time raiding the fridge. He said:

My experience of working from home is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.

Yet there was a time when people earning more than £40,000 a year would have been seen as core Tory voters – to be courted by the party, not insulted as workshy.

Keir Starmer gave an interview to the media today while he was on a visit to a Sainsbury’s store in London where he met customers and staff. Here are the key points.

• Starmer claimed that the revelation that Boris Johnson had had a secret meeting with Sue Gray about the Partygate report was a “new low” for the government. He said:

I always had a concern that as we got to the publication of the Sue Gray report, there will be attempts by the government to undermine her and undermine the report. That’s what we’ve seen going on over the weekend in recent days, a new low for the government.

• He said that Johnson should take responsibility for what happened at No 10 over Partygate – but that he probably wouldn’t. Starmer said:

The culture is set at the top, the can should be carried by the prime minister. He has responsibility. I doubt he will, because he doesn’t take responsibility for anything he’s done in his life. But the culture in Downing Street is set from the top, as it is with any organisation, and that culture has led to industrial-scale law-breaking.

• He accused the government of “dithering” over providing help to people with the cost of living. He said:

Here in Sainsbury’s, both staff and customers have been talking about the cost of living and the prices that they can’t afford. Part of the answer is staring the prime minister in the face and that’s Labour’s plan for windfall tax on oil and gas companies and using that money directly to reduce bills by up to £600 for those who need it most.

But what’s the government doing? It’s dithering, it’s delaying. Last week they voted against a windfall tax, now they’re saying they’re looking at windfall tax.

They need to get a grip on this situation, because every day they dither and delay, more people are struggling, really struggling, with their bills.

And here is a full summary of the lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing.

• The PM’s spokesperson admitted that Downing Street instigated the meeting between Boris Johnson and Sue Gray that took place a few weeks ago. (See 12.30pm.) The spokesperson said:

The formal, technical meeting request came through from Sue Gray, but it was originally suggested by officials in No 10 that it may be something that she might want to consider.

Asked why the meeting was needed, the spokesperson said:

As you would expect for reports like this, it is understandable that there would be a need to share information on things like timings and publication process because obviously there is a process for No 10 and the prime minister that would flow off the back of Sue Gray completing her report. So that then helps with our planning purposes and things like that.

• The spokesperson said there are minutes of the meeting, but that they won’t be released. “It was a private meeting,” he said. “We wouldn’t publish details of a private meeting.” The Lib Dems have today tabled a “humble address” motion which, if passed, would force the government to publish those minutes. But the party does not have a mechanism for getting it debated because the Labour party gets to chose the motion for the next opposition day debate. The Lib Dems say they are trying to persuade Labour to adopt their idea.

• The spokesperson rejected suggestions that the meeting compromised the independence of the Gray report. Gray could decide what meetings she attended, the spokesperson said. He also said that Gray and Johnson had met around the time her interim report was published. He went on:

Again, I point you to the coverage of the interim report which certainly didn’t suggest a lack of independence. And I think it is then for the public to judge following the conclusion and publication of the report itself.

• The spokesperson said Johnson has not yet received the Gray report.

• The spokesperson said Johnson does not believe Gray is “playing politics” with the report, as some reports have claimed. (See 9.24am.) Asked if that was what the PM thought, the spokeperson just said: “No.”

• The spokesperson would not comment on Dominic Cummings’ claim that photographs may soon be published that show Johnson lied to MPs when he said he was not aware of parties taking place at Downing Street. (See 11.49am.)

• The spokesperson would not comment on suggestions that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, might be disciplined following the publication of the Sue Gray report. That was a “hypothetical situation”, the spokesperson said. In the Observer yesterday Toby Helm said Case was being lined up as the scapegoat for the whole affair.

• The spokesperson would not comment on the decision by Canada to impose sanctions on Alexander Lebedev, the former KGB agent turned billionaire whose son, Evgeny, was given a peerage by Johnson. The spokesperson said “it’s not for me to comment on the judgment of a different country”. But the UK has taken significant acton against President Putin’s inner circle, the spokespersons said.

• The spokesperson did not deny reports saying Johnson is backing Bernard Hogan-Howe, the former Met commissioner, to lead the National Crime Agency. It was reported in the Sunday Times yesterday two well-qualified officers have been turned down for the job, but that Hogan-Howe is still in the running, despite originally failing to make the final shortlist. The spokesperson said he had seen the “speculation” about Hogan-Howe, and that it would not be appropriate to comment. Hogan-Howe ran the Met while Johnson was London mayor, and the two have a good relationship. The spokesperson also admitted Johnson had “no formal role” in the process for the appointment of a new head of the NCA.

This morning Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury who was doing the morning interview round on behalf of the government, said he thought Sue Gray had instigated the meeting with Boris Johnson a few weeks ago at which the Partygate report was discussed. (See 9.22am.)

But at the lobby briefing today the PM’s spokesperson admitted that Downing Street had instigated the meeting. He said earlier this month there had been contact, at official level, between No 10 and Gray’s team to discuss a meeting. Asked who suggested the meeting, he replied: “No 10 officials.”

But, following that discussion, Gray’s office “sent through a technical request for a meeting”, the spokesperson said.

He stressed that the meeting was not requested by the PM.

Asked why Clarke had said the meeting was instigated by Gray, the spokesperson said a minister doing interviews would not necessarily know the “granular level detail” of this.

I will post more from the briefing soon.