Downing Street party: Simon Thomas calls on prime minister to resign

Simon Thomas lost his father nine days after the Downing Street drinks party

TV presenter Simon Thomas, whose father lay dying as Boris Johnson attended a Downing Street party, has called on the prime minister to resign.

Thomas said he had feared he would not get to say goodbye to his father, due to Covid restrictions in place in 2020.

Mr Johnson apologised in the Commons after admitting he attended.

But the former Blue Peter presenter said it was time Mr Johnson "sacrificed himself as prime minister and stood down".

The 48-year-old presenter, who grew up in Cromer, Norfolk, was speaking after Mr Johnson's admission during Wednesday's prime minister's questions that he had attended a drinks party in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020.

Mr Johnson told MPs the event was "technically within the rules" but he should have realised how it would look to the public.

Thomas told BBC Look East he did not accept the prime minister's apology, adding: "I just don't buy this idea that he didn't know that this was a party and thought it may have been a work do, as he said in the House of Commons today.

"Now to hear that our prime minister, his government, were not making the sacrifices that so many others were means, for me, his position's untenable.

"You can't keep lying to the British public. They have sacrificed so much and it's now time that he sacrificed himself as prime minister and stood down."

Thomas said that, as the Downing Street party took place, he was beginning a nine-day stay in a camper van on his sister's drive in Norfolk in order to be close to his father Andrew, 78, and family members without breaking social distancing rules.

'Horrendous'

He told BBC Radio Norfolk he had driven from his home in Reading with his now-wife Derrina and son, after his mother called on 20 May telling him his father only had days to live.

Thomas said he and his sisters were able to FaceTime their father, but had to wait for five days before being allowed to enter the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where his father died on 29 May 2020 after suffering multi-organ failure.

"We sat in my sister's garden trying to get hold of the people in the hospital, who were under enormous pressure, to try to get news about Dad," he said.

"It was horrendous because we thought would we never be allowed in.

"Eventually we could go in, one at a time into his room, and sit there in PPE gear with rubber gloves and masks and gowns on, holding his hand.

"But at the same time this party is taking place in Downing Street - we are sat there in my sister's garden, fear-filled, thinking 'Will dad go before we ever get the chance to go and say a proper goodbye?'."

'Bitterly regret it'

Amid criticism from opposition MPs, Mr Johnson has told Parliament he understood the "rage" of people who had "made huge sacrifices throughout this pandemic" at the thought "that people in Downing Street were not following those rules".

"I regret the way the event I have described was handled. I bitterly regret it. And wish that we could have done things differently," he said.

But he urged MPs to wait for the outcome of an inquiry into alleged Covid law-breaking in Downing Street, which he said "will report as soon as possible".

Thomas said he was so grateful his family all got to say their farewells to his father, but was aware that many people in the same situation were not as lucky.

"That goodbye is so, so important in terms of closure, being able to process your grief and eventually rebuild your life," he said.

Thomas explained that such was the emphasis on obeying Covid-19 rules at the time that his sister even messaged neighbours to let them know why his van would be parked on her driveway.

"We arrived about 7pm and we had this really weird stand-off in the front garden; my sister - my mum was with them - was standing on one side of wheelie bins and we're the other," he said.

"It was really important in that period - given the sacrifices people were making - to make it really clear to the people living around my sister that this is why my brother has suddenly rocked up with his wife and kid.

"Yet all the time this was happening - and hundreds of families were going through similar things and some a whole lot worse - we're hearing of shindigs at Downing Street.

"For so many, they never had that because of the sacrifice our prime minister was asking us to make, but was not prepared to make himself.

"That's why this hurts; that's why people are angry."

On the prime minister, Thomas said he hoped "for the future of our country this is the end for him".

The broadcaster, who has also worked for Sky and now presents sport on Amazon Prime, has spoken openly about grief following the sudden death of his first wife Gemma in November 2017.

He married again in Norfolk last year.