Boris Johnson has insisted he does brush his hair as he was forced to apologise for his notoriously messy blond locks.
The Prime Minister was quizzed about his hair during a visit to an Openzon training facility in Bolton, Manchester.
A reporter asked on behalf of his mother why Mr Johnson never appeared to brush his hair.
“Your hair is always all over the place and she wants to know why,” the journalist said in the interview.
The Prime Minister insisted: “I do! It’s something to do with my hair but I can tell you I do brush it – I have a brush in my office.
“And anyway, will you give your mother my very best for a very happy Christmas. And my apologies for my hair but I do my best with it.”
During his visit, Mr Johnson also declined to rule out a third national lockdown amid rising rates of coronavirus.
He said: “We’re hoping very much that we will be able to avoid anything like that. But the reality is that the rates of infection have increased very much in the last few weeks.”
Schools minister Nick Gibb earlier insisted England’s tier system, which will see swathes of southern and eastern England move to the toughest restrictions, is “very effective”.
But he added “we rule nothing out” when asked about the possibility of a national lockdown after Christmas.
It comes as the latest figures from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) show the reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is estimated to have risen to between 1.1 and 1.2.
The Press Association’s analysis of Public Health England data showed London, eastern England and south-east England have Covid-19 case rates that are higher than when the second lockdown began in England on November 5.
