Boris Johnson has been accused of telling aides he would rather let coronavirus “rip” than impose a second lockdown, in the latest allegation levelled at the Prime Minister.

He was reported on Monday night to have argued during a Government debate in September that lockdowns were “mad” as he raised concerns about the economic harm they cause.

A No 10 spokesman said: “These are gross distortions of his position. Throughout this pandemic we’ve done everything we can to save lives and protect livelihoods.”

Johnson ultimately announced the second lockdown for England in October, but his alleged comments are the latest to rock Downing Street amid a briefing war.

What has Johnson said?

He was reported on Monday (26 April) night to have argued during a Government debate in September that lockdowns were “mad” as he raised concerns about the economic harm they cause.

Downing Street described the claims as “gross distortions” of Johnson’s position, as he battled a bitter briefing war that has engulfed No 10.

The allegation surfaced after a growing number of sources were reported to have told how Johnson said he was prepared to let “bodies pile high” rather than order a third shutdown.

After the Daily Mail first reported the remarks, the BBC and ITV were among those to repeat the allegations, citing their own sources. ITV’s report suggested Johnson made the remark in his study just after he agreed to the second lockdown.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove defended Johnson, telling the Commons it is “incredible” to think he would have made the remark.

Gove said that “I was in that room, I never heard language of that kind”, in a defence stopping short of a full denial that the comments had been made.

The Prime Minister, who will address his Cabinet on Tuesday, denied making the comment.

“No, but I think the important thing I think people want us to get on and do as a Government is to make sure that the lockdowns work,” he told reporters in Wrexham.

“They have, and I really pay tribute to the people of this country, this whole country of ours, really pulled together and, working with the vaccination programme, we have got the disease under control.”

‘Unethical, foolish, possibly illegal’

The Prime Minister said the allegations against him were “total rubbish”, before further details surfaced of how he is said to have paid for expensive refurbishments to his Downing Street flat.

No 10 and the Tories declined to deny an ITV report stating that the Conservative Campaign Headquarters paid the Cabinet Office to cover initial costs of the refurbishments, with Johnson now repaying the party.

A Downing Street spokesman said that the “costs of wider refurbishment have been met by the Prime Minister personally”, adding: “Gifts and benefits received in a ministerial capacity are, and will continue to be, declared in transparency returns.”

But Labour’s shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Rachel Reeves said: “This is yet another panicked attempt by the Conservatives to cover up the truth behind the original donors for the luxury refurbishment of the Downing Street flat.”

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case said the Prime Minister has asked him to review the matter, after former aide Dominic Cummings said Johnson wanted donors to “secretly pay” for the work in a move which would have been “unethical, foolish, possibly illegal”.

Who is the ‘chatty rat’?

The decision on the second lockdown last autumn was leaked and is the subject of an inquiry to find the so-called “chatty rat” who tipped off the press.

Case, the UK’s most senior civil servant, declined to say whether Cummings had been cleared over that leak, as the former ally has claimed when striking back at allegations from within No 10.

Case told the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee it is “probable” that the culprit of the “chatty rat” leak will never be identified.

In an incendiary blog post, Cummings said that Case had told Johnson that neither he nor the then No 10 director of communications, Lee Cain, was the culprit.

Cummings released his onslaught after he was accused by No 10 of a series of damaging leaks, including text message exchanges between Johnson and the entrepreneur Sir James Dyson. 

The Cabinet Secretary declined to comment on the suggestion, telling the MPs: “I am not trying to frustrate, but this is drawing me into details of an ongoing investigation which – for reasons I have set out – I can’t go into in this setting.”

Ministers are now concerned at what Cummings may say when he gives evidence to MPs investigating the Government’s response to the pandemic next month.

Cummings is widely known to have been critical of Johnson’s delay in launching a second lockdown in England when cases began rising last autumn, and there is speculation he will seek to blame him for the high death toll.