the partygate scandal has engulfed borisjohnson�*s government. having to apologise - to the queen about those parties, was that a moment of shame for you? - i deeply and bitterly regret that that happened. for some, partygate is all about the prime minister's relationship to rules and honesty. a man who is getting i on with the job, a man of integrity, a man of decency. this is like the schoolboy�*s "dog ate my homework" series of excuses and it's clear that the truth is not being told. can borisjohnson bounce back? talking of christmas, should we be cancelling festive parties? this version of the virus is now starting to spread in the community. should we cancel christmas parties? as we worried that christmas might again be cancelled due to covid, the first report of a downing street party during lockdown a year earlier was published. number 10 responded to that story in the mirror by denying there had been a party, and insisting, "covid rules have been followed at all times." but in the avalanche of reports that followed, that response, often repeated, just crumbled in the face of the facts. the revelations came thick and fast. there was the event with cheese and wine. in this photo — - taken during lockdown — the prime minister, his wife and staff are drinking wine i in the garden. there was the �*bring your own booze�* party in the downing street garden. new questions about apparent breaches of lockdown in downing street. then there was the one where the pm was apparently ambushed by cake on his birthday. the list of problems for borisjohnson gets longer and longer. there were at least 16 gatherings, three on one day. this was partygate and the public didn't like it. i was getting a large quantity of emails from my constituents and letters saying that this is outrageous, saying that they are embarrassed, that they are angry. and there was this. does anybody have . any questions today? a leaked video of a mock press briefing with the prime minister's spokesperson, allegra stratton. is cheese and wine all right? this fictional party - was a business meeting... ..and it was not. socially distanced! ..wincing at the impossibility of spinning number 10 out of this one. ah, erm... i was genuinely surprised when i saw that video, that people were laughing and joking about parties. although, to be fair to allegra stratton, it was kind of an acknowledgement that there isn't an answer to this. if individuals were having events in downing street which were social, purely social events during that time, then that shouldn't have happened. you know, we've all been through this horrendous time. i think we need to cut the prime ministera bit of slack. this isn't an excuse for partygate or whatever you call it, but i think the staff in number 10 have worked all round the clock during this crisis and they deserve a lot of credit. ruby fuller and her mother obeyed the rules, even in the most heart—breaking circumstances. so this is actually one of my favourite photos of ruby. it was actually taken about two weeks before she died. in may 2020, at the height of the first lockdown, ruby had terminal cancer. it meant that ruby couldn't see any of her friends. she couldn't see her grandparents, she couldn't see her cousins. she saw them all for the last time on a zoom call. ruby died on may 15, 2020. i don't think there are words to describe how painful it is to lose a child, but the fact that we were in lockdown and we couldn't come together, thatjust made something that was already awful even worse. and we couldn't have a funeral, or a meaningfulfuneral. ruby had died on the same day the prime minister and his staff were photographed with bottles of wine and a cheeseboard in the downing street garden. i was furious, i was absolutely furious. and it felt like an enormous betrayal that the person setting the rules, the person telling us all to follow those rules wasn't following them himself. cho|r sings the queen, mourning the death of her husband of 70 years, the duke of edinburgh, obeyed the rules to the letter. 0n the night before the funeral, however, there was another party — a leaving do in the basement of number 10, booze said to have been wheeled in in a suitcase. i think the film and _ the photographs of the queen in st george's chapel are iconic. _ playing by the rules, - in circumstances that anyone would have said, "if you break these, "we fully understand i in the circumstances. " in the face of that devotion l to duty, how do you consider the contrast of what is alleged to have gone on elsewhere? l boozy parties held the night before prince philip's funeral... was having to apologise to the queen about those parties the night before she put her husband of over 70 years, she laid him to rest, was that a moment of shame for you? i...i deeply and bitterly regret that that happened. under huge pressure, borisjohnson had ordered senior civil servant sue gray to investigate. at the heart of this scandal are two key questions. the first — did the prime minister break his own lockdown rules — the ones that he himself introduced? adam wagner is a barrister specialising in covid—19 legislation. he's looked at both events attended by borisjohnson in the downing street garden in may 2020. whilst the rules appear to apply to number 10 staff, what about the prime minister? because at the time, the rule was you're not allowed out of your home without a reasonable excuse. but since that garden is his garden... it doesn't apply. i don't think there's any prospect of him being... ..committing an offence under the covid regulations. the pm's birthday celebration a month later inside number 10 could be a different matter. here, by this time, any indoor gathering which wasn't for a specifically accepted purpose was illegal. it makes no difference if you were organising the gathering. the question was, in law, was whether you were participating in the gathering. so if he walked in, saw a birthday party, and said, "i'm not having this," and walked out... that's ok. that�*s ok �*cause he didn�*t participate. but if he walked in and stayed for ten minutes, maybe had something to eat, had a chat with people, that sounds like he�*s participating. so, he might well be liable there for a fine? yeah, no, he might well be liable for a fine. i mean, what sort of fine are you getting? £60? £100. now, for the second key question — did borisjohnson knowingly mislead parliament about what had been going on in downing street? if so, a breach of the ministerial code. this is the introduction to the code. let me read you a passage. "the precious principles of public life "enshrined in this document — "integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, "honesty and leadership in the public interest "must be honoured at all times." the author? borisjohnson. so, did he follow these principles? here�*s what he said about an alleged party on december 18, 2020. what i can tell the right honourable gentleman is that all guidance was followed completely during number 10... questioned again a week later, borisjohnson�*s position had shifted. i have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no covid rules were broken. in other words, if parliament was misled, others would be to blame. a month after his assurances to parliament, the prime minister had to admit he himself had attended the notorious bring—your—own—booze event, organised by his principal private secretary. he said he didn�*t know it was a party. we�*ve had a series of explanations, starting, "there were no parties," and i thought, "should�*ve gone to specsavers." you know, it was pretty obvious it was a party. well, this is like the schoolboy�*s "dog ate my homework" series of excuses and it�*s clear that the truth is not being told. if borisjohnson has knowingly misled parliament, he could be under pressure to resign. to return, if i may, to the ministerial code, i guess a prime minister who really believed in a heartfelt way that these principles were precious, as soon as partygate emerged, he would have said, "this is awful, i�*m going to get to the bottom of it," and he didn�*t. he established an i independent inquiry. you're seeking to look into - the soul of the prime minister, i'm not into the business of looking into the souls| of my fellow men and women. just two years ago, borisjohnson was riding high. in 2019, he won a whopping 80—seat majority, having promised to get brexit done and level up britain. the conservatives won seats in the north of england they�*d never held before, smashing labour�*s red wall. north—west durham was taken by richard holden. i do hereby declare that richard john holden is duly elected. cheering my seat had - a 25,000 labour majority, held by the labour chief whip in 1997. j and now, it's got— a conservative mp for the first time in its history. boris was definitely part| of me winning that seat, there is absolutely. no doubt about that. he just reaches parts where other politicians can't. the prime minister's energy and charisma, one of the reasons why we've won so many seats in the red wall area. yeah, he has a great ability to connect with people. you walk down the street with him, he's got film star quality. two years on, that star quality has lost some of its lustre. the shenanigans at number 10 have left some of the 2019 intake uncertain about their boss. during that time, people have had to make very difficult sacrifices and i want those people to really... ..to understand that people like me, we�*re on their side and doing the right thing throughout, and i want to know that at the centre of government, that was happening as well. some mps who�*ve been around a lot longer, including tim loughton, have already called for him to resign. there's a lot of angry colleagues of mine who really resent being put in the position that they're being put in, who've got serious worries about the credibility of what's coming out of downing street, who dread coming to the office every day for whatever the latest revelation is actually going to be, and want this thing brought to a head sooner rather than later. many mps still swear their loyalty to borisjohnson. yay! vote johnson. this is an early test of public sentiment after partygate. there�*s a by—election next month for this ward in great grimsby being defended by the conservative party. lia nici is the local mp and helping in the election campaign. i�*ve been here a0 years and i had two lucks — one, i had good money from maggie thatcher. oh, really? and furlough — i had furlough, beautiful. oh, god... so i think he�*s doing well, the guy. he needs a second chance, and let�*s see. is there any light at the end of the tunnel? are you in a forgiving mood this morning with the prime minister? yes. why�*s that? because i think everyone reacted the same. - when you're under pressure and, i mean, they were working long i hours. lia nici told me she�*d raised partygate with her boss, borisjohnson. i did talk directly with the pm and said you�*ve got to understand, if you work in a food factory or you�*re a teacher, you don�*t stand and have a glass of wine with work. this is not watergate. we�*ve had a pm who�*s working incredibly hard and i think people realistically in places like grimsby know that. he's a man doing hisjob. so, you think it�*s a fuss over nothing? course i do. load of rubbish. where is borisjohnson now? working. not having cheese and wine today? no, he�*s not having cheese and wine today. he wasn�*t having cheese and wine the other day. wasn't he then? oh, it was all a mistake, was it? i respect the queen. does he? no, he does not. who? your leader, borisjohnson. pmqs is about to begin right now. | nationwide, polls had been plummeting, sharpening minds in westminster. moves against the prime minister — plotted in secret — were now out in the open. can i start by warmly welcoming the honourable memberfor bury south. the bury south mp, christian wakeford, had switched from conservative to labour. mr speaker, like so many people up and down the country, he has concluded that the prime minister and the conservative party have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government the country deserves. david davis, the former brexit secretary, then delivered what he thought was the coup de grace. you are sat there for too long for all the good you've done. in the name of god, go! when the conservative party chose borisjohnson as leader, they had a good idea what they were getting. a politician with charisma, yes, but also a certain reputation. this is the man whose old school teacher once said boris believed he should be regarded as an "exception", "free from the network of obligation that binds everyone else." rory stewart was one of borisjohnson�*s ministers in the foreign office. he�*s a staunch critic. he has a very, very peculiar, to put it politely, relationship with the truth, for many different reasons. sometimes because it suits him, sometimes because he wants to make people happy. but basically, he says whatever he thinks he needs to say on a particular occasion to make it through the day. in the run—up to partygate, the prime minister was already fending off questions about his integrity. who initially paid for the redecoration of his downing street flat? he should know i paid for downing street refurbishment personally, mr speaker. it turns out that wasn�*t the full story. this is interior designer lulu lytle, seen here using her own home to promote her designs. her company had been paid £112,000 to do up the prime minister�*s downing street flat. are you worried about . the investigation, prime minister? who coughed up for the flat, sir? j the renovation was initially paid for by a conservative party donor. it wasn�*t declared, leaving borisjohnson open to claims of corruption. he said he knew nothing about it. by the time that was revealed not to be true, the prime minister had tried to fix the problem by paying for the refurb himself. what do you think his relationship to the truth is? how do you describe it? i don�*t think he is regarded as someone who, er... getting things right is an absolute priority and he has a confidence that he has the skills basically to ride over it. what do you think he�*s done to the office of prime minister? i think he�*s demeaning it, there�*s no other way of putting it. he will set a big picture and maintain an upbeat atmosphere but looking at the details of policy, that is pretty low down on his priorities. then, there was the 0wen paterson affair. in a report, the parliamentary. standards watchdog said he had repeatedly broken lobbying i rules while working as a paid consultant for two firms. borisjohnson wanted to save his friend and former minister 0wen paterson from being punished for breaking the paid lobbying rules. his plan? create a new conservative—controlled committee to review the work of the standards watchdog. i think the thing that the paterson affair tells us most about is the government's attitude towards parliament. opening up the whole questions about how mps are dealt with by parliament, how the standards process works. but, on the basis of trying to save one individual case, and that blew up in their face. the ayes to the right, 238! ——the ayes to the right, 250! the noes to the left, 232! borisjohnson forced his mps to vote for the plan. it backfired. the opposition parties refused to sit on the new committee. the prime minister conceded defeat. if you�*re being marched up the hill to defend, in this case, 0wen paterson, which isn�*t a sort of policy issue, this isn�*t... it was nothing to do with the manifesto, it�*s not part of government. then it�*s doubly galling when, lo and behold, you march down again and the government does a complete u—turn and we all look pretty silly at the end of it. 0wen paterson resigned as an mp. balloon pops. the conservatives lost the resulting by—election — a seat they�*d held for almost 200 years. allegations of sleaze seemed to be cutting through. i think it�*s an accumulation of these issues over the course of the last year means that, you know, standards and ethics in government is something that we are discussing almost on a daily basis. that�*s an extraordinary situation for a government to have got themselves in. and, most importantly for the government, this is distracting from the things that they want to do. i want to focus on the things that i believe that people at home are focusing on. and that's the cost of living, taxes. getting the vaccine in people's arms, keeping the population safe, ensuring the nhs isn't overwhelmed, reopening the economy. he's developed a formidable relationship for getting big judgement calls right. what�*s that got to do with public probity? this is a prime minister who then won the largest majority for the conservative party since margaret thatcher. so it doesn�*t matter what is his attitude to public probity is? so long as he wins? the public are looking at the judgement the prime minister makes on the things that matter to their lives and they're seeing a prime minister who gets those judgements right. borisjohnson is a proven winner. but the man who helped mastermind much of his success is now trying to bring him down. in the shadow of this crisis is an unelected advisor who was his consigliere. ever since his abrupt departure from number 10, he�*s been knifing mr johnson in the front. using his blog, he has dripped allegations in the public domain about borisjohnson that has leftjournalists salivating for more. what are we doing? taking back control. dominic cummings worked with borisjohnson on the vote leave campaign. and then as his chief advisor when mrjohnson got to number10. in may 2020, he was accused of breaking lockdown rules when he famously went to barnard castle in durham. i know some people will argue i should have stayed in my london home throughout. i respectfully disagree. borisjohnson backed dominic cummings to the hilt. he hasn�*t returned the favour. since leaving downing street, mr cummings has engaged in a bitter campaign against his old boss. is part of your plan to hasten him out of downing street? certainly — i think the sooner he goes, the better, for sure. 0h, dominic cummings, - doesn't he come back to haunt the prime minister? i think dominic cummingsi is incredibly disappointing. the prime minister took a lot of criticism for standing - by dominic cummings - after the barnard castle affair and i think he's being very disloyal to him. i for dominic cummings, loyalty doesn�*t come into it. he thinks the prime minister has become a liability and is calling for regime change on social media. the twitter account, the last 2,000 or 3,000 tweets, you know, this goes beyond criticism, it�*s seriously vengeful, venomous stuff, some of it. it is and that's what he's like, once he's in campaign mode, which for him, this will be — a campaign. he doesn't pull any punches and he uses hyperbolic language, he uses every trick he can think of, leaking to the papers, whatever. he won't care about perceived rules or niceties. like in every campaign he's ever run, he's going to be absolutely brutal. after resisting calls to investigate the goings—on at number 10, the metropolitan police changed their mind. they say they only retrospectively investigate what appear to be the most serious and flagrant type of breach. what i can tell you this morning is that, as a result firstly of the information provided by the cabinet office enquiry team and secondly, my officers�* own team, i can confirm the met is investigating a number of events at downing street and whitehall in the last two year in relation to potential breaches of covid—19 regulations. when cressida dick made her announcement, she said one of the criteria that we use to decide whether to investigate retrospective coronavirus offences is whether there is any ambiguity around a reasonable excuse. so you've got to assume that the ones they're looking at are the ones where they don't think there's much ambiguity at all, and that's why i think they will be the prearranged social events. partygate will leave lasting questions about the leadership of borisjohnson, his values and the culture he created in number10. nowjust imagine it, you are in number 10 and you set a disco going and up there is mrs thatcher, probably still awake and reading her papers — are you going to take a chance? are you going to run a disco at one in the morning? no, absolutely not. the culture is set from the top and, you know, civil servants working there will have a sense of what is and is not acceptable. those are really important questions because, yes, ultimately, it's his department and he is the one responsible for that. the prime minister, i believe, is a man of his word. - he's a man who has got| a vision for this country. honest man? my experience of the prime minister — i've known him l a long time — he's always been straightforward and faithful- to me in our dealings. a man of integrity? a man who is getting i on with the job, a man of integrity, a man of decency. this afternoon, sue gray published the first part of her investigation into partygate. of the 16 gatherings she examined, no fewer than 12 are now being investigated by the police, including one in the prime minister�*s flat. sue gray found there was excessive consumption of alcohol, a serious failure to observe high standards expected in downing street. and, crucially for the prime minister, failures of leadership and judgement by number 10. it isn�*t enough to say sorry. we must look at ourselves in the mirror and learn. i get it and i will fix it. yet, tonight, the key choice for the conservative party has not gone away. while the prime minister�*s convivial personality has been an electoral asset, has his behaviour in office become a liability? this is bbc news. our top stories: president biden gives details of how the head of the islamic state group was killed during a raid by us special forces in syria. he chose to blow himself up — notjust with a vest, but to blow up that third floor rather than face justice for the crimes he�*s committed, taking several members of his family with him. let the games begin! the opening ceremony for beijing�*s winter olympics takes place on friday amid excitement and controversy. america says the kremlin has plans to broadcast fake images of the ukrainian army shooting russian sympathisers as a pretext for an invasion. and a rescue operation continues in northern morocco after a five—year—old boy fell into a well.