'Time to go' - Hartlepool bar owner's message to Boris Johnson amid Christmas Party saga

John Gate strung a washing line of Christmas jumpers up outside Idols, in Church Street, Hartlepool, a year ago after the Government decided pubs could not open last December amid ongoing lockdown restrictions.

He also paid £25 for an accompanying banner, which read: “Sorry we are closed…….Just like our Christmas jumpers, we’ve been hung out to dry.”

Quoting Fairytale of New York, the festive song by The Pogues, it referred to Mr Johnson as “you scumbag, you maggot”.

Now – amid continued suggestions that Downing Street aides held a Christmas party in the Prime Minister’s home on December 18 last year – Mr Gate said: “I think what is supposed to have gone on is disgusting.

"We all had to make sacrifices a year ago. Everyone.

"It wasn’t just the hospitality industry, it was the people who who could not see relatives and did not see them again.

"Then you have all this. We were told a year ago that we could not open our doors and yet they are supposed to have had a party.”

Mr Johnson, who visited Hartlepool this May in support of MP Jill Mortimer’s successful by-election campaign, has promised an investigation into the party allegations.

But Mr Gate, 53, who has run Idols for 16 years, insists: “It is time for him to go.

"It is just one thing after another and he appears to making it up as he is going along.”

Mr Johnson also announced more restrictions this week to counter the spread of the Omicron strain of Covid-19.

While the small print has still to be confirmed, nightspots catering for more than 500 people are expected to have to ask drinkers for vaccination passports.

Mr Gate said: “As it stands, it won't apply to us. We can only cater for 80-100 people so people can continue to come here for a good time and not have to worry about being asked for their vaccine passport.”

With Idols closing for seven months until May, the bar had to recruit a new team of staff on reopening.

Mr Gate said: “Most of them have had to jump in at the deep end and have been brilliant.”

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