Today a minister compared Boris Johnson’s partygate fine to a parking ticket, although it turns out the Prime Minister dodged them while at Oxford University.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said the fine received by the Prime Minister for breaching Covid-19 lockdown rules is similar to parking fines received by other politicians.

He told Sky News: “I think we do see consistently, whether it is through parking fines or speeding fines, ministers of both parties over the years have been in that position.

“We’ve had prime ministers in the past who have received penalty notices, from what I can see, and also front bench ministers.

“I saw there was a parking notice that Tony Blair had once. We’ve seen front bench Labour ministers and, let’s be frank, government ministers as well.”

However, an Oxford Mail article from 2007, when Mr Johnson was MP for Henley, reveals he dodged parking tickets while studying at Oxford University. READ MORE about this here>>>

In his 2007 book, Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars, Mr Johnson wrote that he just let the parking tickets pile up until they disintegrated in the rain on the windscreen of his old Fiat 128 - dubbed the Italian Stallion - as it had Belgian licence plates.

He wrote: "A Fiat 128 two-door saloon, 1.2 litres, the Italian Stallion was the trusty steed that emancipated me from the shackles of childhood.

"Before traffic wardens became bonus-hungry maniacs, and when it was still rare for a student to own any kind of car at all, I parked all over the place, my favourite spot in Oxford being the yellow lines by the squash courts in Jowett Walk.

"Sometimes, it is true, I got a ticket. But what did I care? The Stallion had Belgian plates.

"I let them pile in drifts against the windscreen until - in the days before they were even sheathed in plastic - the fines just disintegrated in the rain."

Mr Johnson along with his wife Carrie Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak, were issued with fixed-penalty notices last week issued by police investigating claims of coronavirus lockdown breaches in No 10.

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