It was what Boris Johnson and his most senior aides had both feared and expected. Shortly before lunchtime on Tuesday, Downing Street took a call from the Metropolitan Police to inform the prime minister that he was on a list of thirty No 10 officials and staff who, they had just announced, would be issued with fines for breaching lockdown rules. The only problem was that when the notification came, almost nobody was at the scene — so to speak — of the crime. SponsoredThe prime minister and his wife were at Chequers, where Johnson was supposed to be taking a couple of days off in the Easter parliamentary recess. Steve Barclay, his chief of staff, had taken advantage of Johnson’s absence to head home

Source: The Times April 16, 2022 15:09 UTC