A DARLINGTON woman whose mother died on the same day as one of the Downing Street parties has spoken of feeling betrayed by the Prime Minister.

The beloved grandmother died at Darlington Memorial Hospital in January 2021.

Her daughter, who did not want to be named due to her job, said: “It’s infuriating. I feel betrayed. Boris Johnson had a party on the day my mum died. I feel so hurt, I couldn’t believe it.

"My sister lives in the south and couldn’t travel up. My mum’s sisters who live locally weren’t able to go into hospital. I didn’t go to the hospital when she was dying until the very end. 

“How dare he? He’s meant to be a leader. He should be leading my example. I think he should go. I'm not so bothered about Rishi.

Read more: North East Tory MPs yet to respond to PM's Covid fine

“You follow the rules to keep people safe and sacrifice the last moments of someone’s life and then you find out they have not been doing what they told us to.

“I had to empty my mum’s flat myself because no-one else was allowed to be there. We had 10 people at the funeral and we didn’t have a wake.”

Boris Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak will be both fined, alongside the prime minister’s wife Carrie Johnson, following allegations of lockdown parties in Downing Street and Whitehall.

It means Boris Johnson is the first sitting prime minister in history to have broken the law, despite Downing Street previously saying that he had not broken the rules.

The woman told the Northern Echo she had voted Conservative at the last election but had written to her MP Peter Gibson recently asking him to write a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister.

Read more: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to receive fines for lockdown parties

She added: “I don’t know how we can have a Prime Minister who tells people they have to do one thing and he doesn’t do it himself.

"He’s been the subject of a police investigation and he’s been fined. He’s such a buffoon. I mean come on – all that rubbish that he didn’t know it was a party. It’s no defence.

“You don’t have to have lost someone to be upset that the Prime Minister has broken the rules but it adds an extra level of hurt. I wish I could go back and say to my sister ‘f*** it, be with mum as she was dying’.”

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