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Latest updates: Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, says PM’s fine for breaking lockdown rules is akin to parking ticketTory plotters eye local elections as next chance to oust Boris JohnsonEd Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has called Brandon Lewis’s comments this morning (see 9.34am) “an insult to bereaved families”. He said in a statement:The excuses of Conservative ministers are getting more pathetic by the day. There is a massive difference between getting a parking fine and Boris Johnson breaking his own lockdown rules.It is an insult to bereaved families and all those who made huge sacrifices while Johnson partied in Number 10. Conservative MPs need to discover their moral backbone and sack Johnson instead of defending the indefensible.Today I have received a fixed-penalty notice from the Metropolitan police relating to an event in Downing Street on 19 June 2020, and let me say immediately that I have paid the fine and I once again offer a full apology.And in a spirit of openness and humility, I want to be completely clear about what happened on that date.I think we do see consistently, whether it is through parking fines or speeding fines, ministers of both parties over the years have been in that position. We’ve had prime ministers in the past who have received penalty notices, from what I can see, and also frontbench ministers.I saw there was a parking notice that Tony Blair had once. We’ve seen frontbench Labour ministers and, let’s be frank, government ministers as well.As I say, if somebody gets a speeding ticket – and I’m not in any way trying to equate a speeding ticket that somebody has had with the situation of the sacrifices people made through Covid, I’ll be really clear about that ...These were rules that we were told we couldn’t even flex because lives are at stake. This was a moment of national crisis in which all our lives changed. And you are essentially downplaying that by bringing in some spurious reports that you’ve heard without even backing. Continue reading...