LONDON — Boris Johnson has another serious headache, after British news media reported Monday that 10 Downing Street may have hosted yet another party during a strict coronavirus lockdown.

       First there were reports of a Christmas party that took place in December 2020, as hospitals filled with the sick and dying. Then the Guardian published a photograph of the prime minister and his wife in their sunny garden, alongside 17 staffers and half-empty bottles of wine, from May 15, 2020, when gatherings of more than two people were banned in outdoor public places.

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       Now ITV News reports that it has a copy of an email invitation for a second garden party, this one on May 20, 2020, from Johnson’s private secretary, Martin Reynolds, to more than 100 staff members at Downing Street. The location, like the White House, serves as both office and residence for the country’s leader.

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       “Hi all, after what has been an incredibly busy period it would be nice to make the most of the lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening,” the email reads. “Please join us from 6pm and bring your own booze!”

       ITV News reports that “around 40 staff gathered in the garden that evening, eating picnic food and drinking. Crucially, they included the Prime Minister and his wife Carrie Johnson.”

       The spokesman at Downing Street declined to comment, saying that gatherings were under investigation by a career civil servant.

       The alleged parties are controversial — and grating for many — because they occurred as Johnson’s government was enforcing lockdown measures that kept families and loved ones apart, even in hospitals and at funerals.

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       Hannah Brady, spokeswoman for the group Covid 19 Bereaved Families for Justice, tweeted on Monday that her father had died four days before the “BYOB” party.

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       “At the time, everyone would have known that going to a party was wrong, so how can those running the country have thought it was OK?” she wrote.

       Opposition Labour Party leader Angela Rayner called the gatherings “disgraceful” and said the prime minister “sets the tone” and “should be ashamed.”

       The existence of this second May garden party was mentioned in a blog post by Johnson’s former senior adviser Dominic Cummings, who has dismissed the prime minister as a broken supermarket cart that can’t steer a straight line.

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       Cummings, once called “Johnson’s brain,” who was instrumental in winning the Brexit vote to leave the European Union, is not without sin. During the first lockdown, in March 2020, he flouted strict rules and damaged public trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic. He drove six hours north, to shelter at his family farm, after he and his wife were infected with the coronavirus. Later he drove to a nearby castle known for sightseeing — to test his eyesight, he claimed.

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       All these actions have led critics to assert that there appears to be one rule for the people, and another for the elites.

       On its broadcast on Monday, ITV News reminded viewers that on May 20, 2020, the same day as the BYOB invite, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told the public at a press briefing: “You can meet one person outside of your household in an outdoor, public place provided that you stay two meters apart.”

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       Also at the time, police were breaking up gatherings of young people meeting in parks.

       A spokesman for Downing Street said earlier that no rules were broken at the May 15 gathering, as the garden is private, not a public space, and that this was not a party but a “work meeting” that was deemed “essential.”

       Many Britons mocked that assertion. Labour Party leader Kier Starmer called it “a stretch.”

       Johnson, too, has denied that any rules were broken, but under pressure from his own Conservative Party, he ordered an internal inquiry by Britain’s top civil servant, Simon Case.

       Case was forced to recuse himself from the probe after reports that a party was held in his own office about the same time.