OUR readers have reacted to the Downing Street 'partygate' scandal from May 2020 - which Boris Johnson yesterday (January 12) admitted to attending - by recalling heartbreaking memories of the same day.

The Prime Minister apologised for attending a "bring your own booze" party in the Downing Street garden on May 20 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown, but insisted he believed it was a work event and could "technically" have been within the rules.

Mr Johnson's confirmation that he was at the event led to four Tory MPs publicly calling for him to quit, with more privately voicing concerns about his leadership.

The Prime Minister pulled out of a planned visit to a vaccination centre in Lancashire on Thursday, where he would have faced questions from the Lancashire Telegraph about his actions, because a family member tested positive for coronavirus.

Daniel Hannan said: "I was locked down in a bungalow while looking after my terminally ill mother, who died.

"She wanted to go outside, she said, before the cancer took over. I had to keep her in.

"God, if I'd have known then what I know now, I would have taken her out in the car and travelled around the country.

"I will never forgive this government, I hate them all with a passion."

Debbie Hardy, a health worker who was on a phased return to her ward after suffering herself with a bout of Covid-19, revealed what she had written in her diary on the day of the Downing Street party.

It read: "Dreadful day. Had to tell a son that his dad was deteriorating but he wasn't allowed to come in. Held the iPad for a Zoom call so he could see his unresponsive dad. He thanked me profusely. I felt useless.

"Will we ever recover properly from this awful, unprecedented time."

Sarah Booth, from Darwen, said: "I know what I wasn't doing. Getting to spend time with my beloved Grandma who had to go into care in January 2020. She sadly died last year and I wasn't able to spend quality time with her in her final months.

"I also spent months and months in isolation without seeing friends or family due to being on the 'critically vulnerable' list. It's a joke."

Ruth Dale, from Blackburn, said: "That week, my then partner's daughter's dad died suddenly and there were so many rules over what he could be dressed in, no one could carry his coffin and only 10 people were allowed at the funeral. No wake was allowed either.

"I am disgusted that they [government officials] were doing this and are likely to get away with it while the rest of us were being made to follow the rules they set."

Rebecca Bonny recalled "suffering with post-natal depression after giving birth in the January and having no support groups to attend while home schooling my daughter who had just started reception.

"I remember feeling like an absolute failure," she said. "Heartbreaking."

Julie Campbell said: "I was working in the hospital and supporting my husband, who had cancer, while waiting for his major operation with no visiting rights.

"I am angry, annoyed and upset. There are no words to describe what they have done."

Charlotte Simpson, who studied at Burnley College and works for ELHT, say she remembers working her third redeployment in an intensive care unit at the time. "I was traumatised," she added.

Holly Mulleary-Fenton said: "I was working on the frontline for the ambulance service on a night shift, dealing face to face with Coronavirus patients and not seeing my family while the prime minister was partying. Absolute mickey-take!"