Boris Johnson reacts to resignation of Tory Carlisle councillor Paul Nedved

But the Prime Minister - speaking to The Cumberland News as he visited a new £35m cancer care centre in the city - refused to address specific criticisms levelled at him by the now independent city councillor Paul Nedved, who described the recent Downing revelations as 'squalid'.

In his resignation letter, tendered after 45 years of party membership, Mr Nedved said he was 'critical and ashamed of the Prime Minister' for bringing the Conservative Party into disrepute by breaking the very rules his Government had set.

“We all kept stringently to the rules and the recent responses from Boris Johnson are at the very least breathtakingly arrogant and out of touch,” he added.

Asked whether he had any message for Mr Nedved and others who now doubted that he should stay as Prime Minister, Mr Johnson replied: “First of all, I’m sorry to hear about Paul. I hope he comes back.

“I can’t really say much about the actual process that’s now underway but I’ll be saying more about it in due course. I hope people will look at what the Government is getting on with. This is a Government that is absolutely committed to our incredible agenda of uniting and levelling up across the country.

“We are focused completely on that.”

Mr Johnson visited Carlisle as part of his half-term “Levelling Up” tour. He was shown around the Northern Centre for Cancer Care. The result of years of work by Newcastle Hospitals and North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, which runs The Cumberland Infirmary, the centre opened in August last year.

Listening: The Prime Minister spent time speaking to staff and patients at the , describing the facility as "amazing." Picture: Stuart Walker.

The Prime Minister said it was an “amazing” facility.

“What they can do here is incredible,” he said. “It requires a lot of support and a lot of investment and that’s why we’re putting it in.”

He repeatedly focused the interview of the Government’s “levelling up agenda”. Asked to define this, he said: “It’s about us recognising that there’s talent everywhere in this county; there are people who can do great jobs.

“It’s about putting in the basic infrastructure, the investment, the care, and the love, that’s going to mean business comes in... My view is that there's talent; there's energy; there's enthusiasm; there's genius everywhere in the UK but the state needs to unlock it a bit and let the private sector come in.

"So that’s what we’re doing.”

Mr Nedved, who represents Houghton and Stanwix, thanked The Cumberland News for raising his party resignation with Mr Johnson. “My opinion hasn’t altered and I have absolutely no misgivings about my decision,” he said.

“The response I’ve had from residents and other politicians in the north of the city has been generally very supportive. It looks as though the issue has been pretty well sidestepped.

“Clearly, with the situation in Ukraine, there are weightier matters but that doesn’t take away from this primary issue about trust in the Prime Minister and his officials. That’s the issue. If you don’t have trust on this, you don’t have trust on the other Government agenda items.”

Comment: Councillor Paul Nedved (left) quit the conservatives after 45 years in the party while Carlisle MP John Stevenson says 'levelling up' is already an exciting and well-funded reality in Carlisle.

Mr Nedved noted Mr Johnson’s apology in the Commons for events at Downing Street but said he wanted to see more “humility” and “transparency”.

Louise Atkinson, a Labour city councillor for Cathedral and Castle ward, said of Mr Johnson’s response: “It’s just words – and absolute nonsense. It highlights just how out of touch they are with the reality of what the people living and working in Carlisle are facing.”

All Government investment in Carlisle is welcome, she said, but added: “The Prime Minister was trying to deflect from what they’ve done. They know what they’ve done. It’s clear to everybody what’s happened and it’s an utter disgrace.

“They were partying under the guise of work. I don’t know of a workplace where it’s acceptable to drink as much as that and call it work.” Mr Johnson should have admitted wrongdoing at the outset, she said, but he had avoided ownership of what happened.

She added: “Levelling up is just words. I haven’t seen the effect of that in Carlisle and the residents I work for aren’t feeling the effect of levelling up.”

Carlisle MP John Stevenson said levelling up is a reality in Carlisle – backed by around £200m of recent Government investment.

He said: “It’s about improving people’s lives and closing the gap between the less prosperous and the more prosperous places in an upward direction. It’s about creating a good environment, good infrastructure, skills and education and private-sector investment.”

Publicly-funded schemes underway locally include ones linked to the £20m Towns Fund, the £9m High Street Fund, the £25m Carlisle rail station refurbishment, the £75m Citadels regeneration, as well as the remodelled Sands Centre costing £25m, a £6.6m boost for Cumbrian policing, £2m spent on the Garden Village project, and £145m for the Carlisle Southern Link Road.

Asked about the Prime Minister, Mr Stevenson added: “He’s undoubtedly resilient and charismatic.

“But we get too hung up on personality. Yes it matters, but only to a point. After that what matters is the policies being implemented and what’s happening in people’s lives. My party right now has a very exciting agenda unmatched by any other political party.”

Pressed on “partygate” , the MP added: “It’s been deeply disappointing. There’s been a failure of management and leadership within No 10.

“Unfortunately, things like this distract from the important and exciting agenda for places like Carlisle and the north of England.

"We need to get back to focusing on policy and the real issues that affect real people’s lives but you can’t get away from the fact that what happened in Downing Street should not have happened... but we await the report of the Met and Sue Gray’s final report.”