British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office has rejected a minister’s suggestion that Christmas parties should be cancelled or scaled back to prevent the spread of the new Omicron COVID-19 variant. Downing Street said on Thursday that rules dictating Christmas party sizes are not in the current set of COVID-19 regulations. In media interviews earlier in the day, business minister George Freeman said the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will not have a “big” Christmas party, and that his pre-Christmas drinks with staff in his MP office had been switched to Zoom. Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he suggested that larger companies might consider cancelling their staff Christmas parties. “Some companies might normally bring hundreds of people in from around the world to a big party, and they may decide, this year, is that sensible given the pandemic and given where we are?” Freeman’s suggestion was …