I’m only keeping one eye on the proceedings ATM but, it seems to me that BJ is defending the indefensible - the “rules” are clearly seen to be broken but the committee has to decide whether or not BJ deliberately/recklessly lied to Parliament.
BJ : Everyone at No 10 was ‘acutely aware’ of social distancing
Reality Check:
What did the guidance actually say about events like leaving drinks?
Boris Johnson has defended the leaving do on 13 November 2020 which he was pictured at, saying: “The guidance specifically allows for workplace freedoms to decide how to implement it.”
But what the guidance for England said was that social distancing of two metres or one metre with mitigation should be followed. If that wasn’t possible the activity should have been redesigned or potentially stopped. There was nothing in the guidance that permitted work gatherings such as leaving drinks.
Remember that Downing Street insiders told the BBC that at the event being discussed: “there were about 30 people, if not more, in a room. Everyone was stood shoulder to shoulder, some people on each other’s laps”.
Johnson reprimanded over long answers
Committee chair Harriet Harman tells Johnson to answer the panel’s questions as “succinctly as possible”.
Sir Bernard Jenkin earlier took issue with what he felt were long replies from the former PM. He interrupted Johnson to request, not for the first time, that he give shorter answers and repeat himself less.
It will, of course, be unnatural for BJ to give a straight answer to a straight question … 
Johnson frames gatherings as being for work, not socialising
When the committee put to him a moment ago that the attendees at his birthday gathering in the cabinet room included his wife and his interior designer, Johnson was quick to try and correct them - calling Lulu Lytle a “contractor who was working in the building”.
LL won’t like that … 
Questions about gathering of up to 40 in No 10 garden
The questioning now turns to an event in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020.
Labour MP Yvonne Fovargue says there’s evidence up to 40 people were present at the same time, Johnson was there and that an email invitation, from his then-Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds was sent to some 200 people and encouraged them to bring their own alcohol.
She asks if Johnson saw the email invitation before it was made public, to which he responds: “no.” He also says he was not aware the email was sent to around 200 people.
Johnson claims his understanding of the purpose of the gathering was that it was to thank staff working hard on Covid in “a ventilated area”. He adds that the cabinet secretary had just stepped down and civil servants needed to feel “business was carrying on”.
BJ is keen to let us know that he was forever thanking the troops and encouraging them to continue the fight …
Reality Check
Specific ban on work Christmas parties was in place
Boris Johnson was earlier asked about a gathering in the Downing Street press office on 18 December 2020 and the fact that the told the House of Commons that all guidance was followed in No 10.
He said he didn’t attend the event and says he remembers it was an evening where they were dealing with the emergence of the Delta variant of Covid and fears over a no-deal Brexit.
Johnson says he has no memory of seeing any kind of “party or illicit gathering” taking place, adding he first learned of it more than a year later from an advisor
The event featured alcohol, a Secret Santa gift exchange, and an awards ceremony, with people working elsewhere in the building complaining about the noise it generated.
A cleaner noted the following morning that red wine had been spilled on one wall and on a number of boxes of photocopier paper.
Not only was there nothing in the guidance suggesting such an event would be acceptable, the guidance for England at the time said specifically: “You must not have a work Christmas lunch or party, where that is a primarily social activity and is not otherwise permitted by the rules in your tier”.
