Johnson's communications chief admitted a 'big gaping hole' in the Partygate account

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Boris Johnson's own communications chief has admitted there was a 'big gaping hole' in the Prime Minister's Partygate narrative, according to explosive new evidence.

Whatsapp messages passed to the parliamentary inquiry into the lockdown party scandal show the former prime minister's advisers are 'struggling' to see whether events were within the rules.

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The messages were revealed in an interim report from the Commons cross-party privileges committee which said evidence strongly suggests breaches of coronavirus rules would have been 'obvious' to Mr Johnson at the time he attended some of the rallies.

Mr. Johnson will appear before MPs later this month to testify to these claims.

Among the revelations, the report states:

Mr. Johnson could see a notorious gathering point for Downing Street parties from the bottom of the stairs to his flat A Number 10 manager said a colleague was 'worried about leaks of pissing PM and to be fair I don't don't think it's unwarranted' There was a government 'reluctance' to provide the committee with unredacted evidence while Mr Johnson was still Prime Minister, delaying his investigation In a statement released shortly afterwards, Mr Johnson said the report showed he was 'justified' as he raised concerns about the move of Civil Service investigator Sue Gray to Sir Keir Starmer's office.

< p>But the committee insisted its investigation was 'not based on Sue Gray's report' but on evidence from witnesses, Whatsapps and emails as well as photographs by a Downing Street photographer.< /p>

Labour Deputy Leader Ang ela Rayn er called the interim report “damning” and called on Rishi Sunak to “stop supporting this disgraced prime minister and his legal defense fund – and make it clear that if he is found guilty of...