Boris Johnson party photos: The incriminating images that could put the fizz back into partygate

Boris Johnson raises a glass of wine and toasts the departure of his director of communications. The glass of fizz (possibly champagne) is gripped in his right hand, a smile on the Prime Minister’s face as he and at least seven members of his Downing Street press team say their farewells to Lee Cain, his departing official spokesman who had fallen out with Mr Johnson’s young fiancee Carrie Symonds (now his wife).

Yet eight days before this incriminating photograph was taken on November 13 2020, the Prime Minister had plunged England into a second national lockdown. Pubs were shut, travel banned and socialising indoors or even in back gardens prohibited.

On the table in the photograph’s foreground appears prima facie evidence of what could only best be described as a party. There are two bottles of bubbly, four bottles of wine (two red and two white) and half a bottle of gin. Most of the booze has been drunk bar one bottle of unopened fizz, visible at the very edge of the picture. There appears to be some baguettes on a plate (presumably to line the stomachs), biscuits, crisps and paper cups and what eagle-eyed watchers on social media said was a takeaway cardboard container from Dishoom, a fashionable Indian restaurant chain, on the right-hand corner of the table. Oh, and perched on a chair in the press office is the Prime Minister’s red box, containing the official documents of state he was taking home with him to the flat in 11 Downing Street that is “above the shop”.

After some months studying the evidence - believed to include this photograph and three others from the same set - the Metropolitan Police concluded Mr Johnson had broken none of the rules he had ordered the rest of the country to follow just a few days before.

The other photographs all taken by the same person show Mr Johnson in a variety of poses.

Wearing a blue suit, white shirt and tie, in one image he fully extends his wine glass up high while in another his arms are flapping at his sides, a big grin across his face.

In the final photo, he appears to be in mid-flow of what is said to be a farewell speech, his left arm gesticulating as his staff, their faces subsequently digitally obscured, look on. ITV News, which obtained the exclusive photographs, have branded the party “fizzgate”.

Not that the PM has admitted to any wrongdoing. A little over a year after this event took place, Mr Johnson told MPs “all guidance was completely followed in No 10”.

Now it has emerged that the prime minister has escaped a fine for the leaving do, despite the photographic evidence. Police did not even send Mr Johnson a questionnaire, indicating that officers did not believe he had a case to answer.

Back in November 2020, Downing Street was in chaos. Mr Cain and his mentor Dominic Cummings, the Downing Street chief of staff, had fallen out with Ms Symonds (now the third Mrs Boris Johnson). Mr Johnson had a plan to promote Mr Cain but that had been scuppered. Mr Cain instead announced he was resigning and - after The Telegraph reported on November 12 that Ms Symonds was being referred to behind her back as “Princess Nut Nuts” - he went the next day.

The departure of Mr Cain and Mr Cummings didn’t just spark this leaving party. It is also alleged that upstairs in the Johnsons’ Downing Street flat, Ms Symonds hosted her own farewell party.

Downing Street insisted the so-called Abba Party did not happen. “It is totally untrue to suggest Mrs Johnson held a party in the Downing Street flat on November 13 2020,” said a spokesman in rebuttal. A police investigation concluded that Ms Symonds broke no rules.

Why PM may not have been fined this time

On Monday night, No 10 sources offered suggestions for why the PM had escaped a damaging fixed penalty notice on this occasion.

The photograph was taken from inside the Downing Street press office, officials explained, looking out to the corridor that leads from Mr Johnson’s private office on the ground floor to the lift that takes him upstairs to his private flat.

Mr Johnson was simply on his way to his flat after a hard day at the coalface when he chanced upon the press office event.

Having heard the commotion as he strode to the lift, he was diverted by the noise and stuck his head through the doorway. There he discovered, so the version of events goes, a leaving do for Mr Cain, a one-time tabloid journalist turned faithful lieutenant. Aides were drinking and Mr Johnson thought it impolite not to say his own goodbyes. He then toasted Mr Cain’s work in Downing Street with other staff - the event caught on camera - before leaving to go upstairs to his flat.

Those around Mr Johnson believe he was not fined over the incident because he spent so little time inside the press office that it did not meet the threshold for a non-work related event.

A source said around 15 people were at the event and Mr Johnson had attended for “around 20 minutes” to “boost morale” among staff in the press office.

Once upstairs, Mr Johnson may well have stumbled across another party in progress. This one was his wife’s alleged Abba party. Sources have let it be known that once upstairs he was interviewing Henry Newman, a close friend of his wife’s, about a potential job in No 10. The interview, according to government sources, took place in another part of the four-bedroom official state apartment at No 11.

He had not broken the law at the so-called Abba party, because, said the source, the job interview constituted work.

Opponents likely to cry foul

The decision by police to issue Mr Johnson with a £50 fine for attending his own 56th birthday party in the Cabinet room in June 2020 - five months earlier than the Cain leaving party and at a time when the Covid-19 restrictions were far less stringent - but not for the events in November of that year will cause the Prime Minister’s opponents to cry foul.

In the midst of the investigation, well-placed sources had told The Telegraph that if Mr Johnson was getting a fine for the birthday bash then he was in real trouble for the events of November 13 that followed. And yet the PM has escaped any more fines, boosting his chances of surviving the partygate fallout.

It is a decision that has baffled some. One former Scotland Yard senior insider said: “I expect Number 10 said to the Met: ‘For god’s sake don’t give him another fine’,” while another former senior officer said: “It is ill-suited for police officers to be involved in making these judgments. The entire mess has been utterly predictable.”

Whatever the law and the police interpretation of it, the reality is the photographs are not a good look for a prime minister who has just plunged the country into the strictest of Covid lockdowns. That the photographs emerged on Monday, shortly after Mr Cummings predicted they would, will also raise eyebrows about who leaked them. Mr Cummings, writing on his blog, said the images would show the PM had “obviously lied” to the House of Commons and to the police.

That detectives have decided no crime was committed on November 13 will come as some relief to Mr Johnson. The wider public, studying the evidence for itself, may not be so accommodating.