Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi attacks the Government as he makes an impassioned tirade in the House of Commons.

He says: “My grandmother who I loved dearly was lying on her hospital death end and none of us were there to be able to comfort her in her final moments.

“I couldn’t even carry her coffin on my shoulders. I also had to deal with the agony of watching alone online the funeral of may fun-loving uncle and we were not there to comfort my brother-in-law’s father who had somehow contracted Covid in a slough care home during his final moments. All this because we followed government guidance.

“Having experienced such painful personal sacrifices, like many others, imagine our collective disgust, when in order to carry favour with the PM’s chief adviser, we see sycophantic, spineless, hypocritical government ministers lining up to defend the indefensible. Saying it is time to move on, with some too saying they too go for a long drive when they need to get their eyesight tested. They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

“So when is the PM going to finally apologise to the nation for not mustering up the courage and integrity for doing the honourable thing and sacking his chief adviser who so shamelessly flouted his own government guidance.

“And that he could have regained that lost public trust and confidence and could have demonstrated it’s not one rule for him and his elite chums and another for the rest of us plebs.”

Striking a humble tone, Mr Johnson apologies.

He says: “I apologise for the suffering that the people of this country have endured and all I can say is nothing I can say or do can take back the lost lives, the lost time spent with loved ones that he described.

“I am deeply, deeply sorry for that.”