No 10 Christmas party row: 'They were just laughing in the faces of the rest of the population'

A bereaved woman from North Tyneside, whose husband died on New Year's Day, has told ITV News Tyne Tees she thinks staff at Number 10 Downing Street who allegedly attended a Christmas party whilst the rest of the country was facing tough Covid-19 restrictions, were "laughing in the faces of the rest of the population".

Susan Ogden's had not seen her husband, Peter who had dementia, for nine months last Christmas. She had been given permission to have one visit with him at his care home in December.

She said: "I planned a visit as near to Christmas as possible on the 21st of December and on the evening of the 20th a nurse from the home had the unenviable task of ringing me to tell me that that visit would be cancelled and quite honestly, we both cried."

On New Year's Day, Peter died in the home. Susan said: "He had pneumonia and did die and I saw him for about five minutes before he actually died. It was very upsetting for us all because, you know, all the family had gathered up gifts, although when someone has dementia as severe as Peter’s it doesn’t mean so much to him, but it certainly meant a great deal to us as a family."

After seeing a video obtained by ITV News, which shows the former press secretary of the Prime Minister talking about an alleged Number 10 Christmas party on the 18 December last year, that broke Covid rules, she said she is appalled.

She said: "I mean I don’t think anything that’s happened in this pandemic has been something to joke about. It was almost as if they were just laughing in the faces of the rest of the population who were, in the main, trying to abide by the rules in the hope that we would come out of this."

Boris Johnson faced questions in PMQs on Wednesday and said he has been "repeatedly reassured" there was no party, but has ordered an inquiry into whether rules were broken.

For one care home owner in Newcastle, that is of little comfort. Lucy Craig of West Farm Care Home, said: "This is absolutely abhorrent, but it hits particularly hard to us at a time when relatives were dropping Christmas presents off at the door and we were doing everything virtually and we were still locked down and we were still trying to be the families for everybody.

"It also raises that horrendous question about the mandated vaccines and about the money that’s allegedly going to be invested into adult social care. How can anybody take that seriously and how can anybody really believe that that’s going to happen, because once again, the trade off and the kick in the teeth is, we actually don’t really care about you."

The former press secretary of the PM, Allegra Stratton, resigned from government on Wednesday afternoon following the ITV News broadcast of the video showing her laughing and joking about the alleged Christmas party.She said she would "regret those remarks for the rest of my days".