Boris’s excuse didn’t wash for these Covid lockdown rule breakers

As Boris Johnson battles to survive the Partygate scandal and faces widespread anger from the public and his own MPs, he is still hoping his apology over the Downing Street festivities will be enough. But the Prime Minister has to face up to the fact that, for thousands of people around the country, saying sorry or offering excuses for Covid lockdown rule breaking didn’t cut it. Many ordinary Brits were criminalised for breaking the law during the pandemic, sometimes in very sad and desperate circumstances.

The case of a 23-year-old woman from Eltham, in south east London, draws a striking parallel with an accusation levelled against the Prime Minister over the Downing Street garden party on 20 May 2020. Johnson claims to have walked into the event while unaware that it was against the rules. Similarly, the woman said she went to ‘drop off a birthday card’ for a friend she had been helping with childcare, and ‘didn’t realise there would be other people present’.