LONDON | Around 50 additional fines were reported in investigations into parties detained in UK power circles during the lockdown, police said on Thursday, bringing the total to more than 100 fines.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie and Finance Minister Rishi Sunak were themselves fined in April for attending a birthday celebration marking Mr Johnson’s 56th birthday in Council Chamber ministers in June 2020.
Police announced on Thursday that they had now issued a total of “more than 100” fines for anti-Covid rule violations as part of this investigation, saying it was “ongoing”.
Boris Johnson apologized “unreservedly” to Parliament after receiving the fine without convincing the opposition who had called for his resignation.
The Tory leader said it “didn’t occur to him then or after” that his attendance at the brief gathering on his birthday “might constitute a breach of the rules in force at the time”.
The revelation of a series of celebratory events at Downing Street or in circles of power shocked Britons, who at the same time were legally forced to limit their social interactions.
This ‘partygate’ has rattled the popularity of Boris Johnson, whose Conservative Party also suffered a severe blow in local elections earlier in May, amid runaway inflation and a spending power crunch fueling the scandal.