The attempt to cherry-pick who is given media access was widely criticised, especially as civil servants are supposed to be neutral.

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It comes amid concern that briefings of the “Lobby” – as the journalists who cover Westminster are known – have been moved from the Houses of Parliament to 10 Downing Street, making it harder for smaller publications to attend. The move was criticised by all the country’s national newspaper editors in a letter to the government.

“Yesterday’s actions are very much at odds with the pledges made for freedom of expression by the prime minister in his queen’s speech,” the Society of Editors said in a statement released Tuesday. “This is the latest in a run of problematic media encounters by the new administration.”

An urgent question on the matter was also raised Tuesday in the House of Commons by the shadow secretary for media and culture, Labour’s Lucy Tobin.

Opposition MPs accused the Parliamentary Secretary Chloe Smith who was left to field the question of giving an “Orwellian” answer.

“This government are committed to being open in their dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom, and the events of yesterday were a good example of that,” Smith told the House of Commons.

“This particular briefing, which the media have reported on, was an additional, smaller meeting due to be held by a special adviser in order to improve the understanding of the government’s negotiating aims for the future relationship”.

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“It makes Comical Ali look like a Pulitzer Prize winner,” said Pete Wishart, a member of the Scottish National Party, referring to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s spin-doctor. “Yesterday was a black day for press freedom and no amount of sleek, self-justifying nonsense from the honourable lady is going to get her off the Trumpian hook.”

“Government officials should not be attacking freedom of the press this way,” the National Union of Journalists said in a statement. “As ministers are now regularly refusing to be accountable for their actions by boycotting certain programmes and journalists, this represents another very dangerous step. Johnson’s government must stop this paranoia and engage with all the press, not just their favourites.”

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The incident and the ensuing outcry, including condemnation from the National Union of Journalists, comes amid fears the government is gunning for the BBC. Moves are afoot to shake up the funding of the public broadcaster, starting with the decriminalisation of non-payment of the license fee by individual households.

The director general of the BBC Tony Hall announced last month he was stepping down in the summer, after seven years in the role. The corporation last week announced 450 job cuts from its newsroom.

Broadcasters have also refused to show clips from Johnson’s Facebook “Question Times” with preselected questions public with rather soft questions – such as what shampoo he prefers to use.

Meanwhile, the prime minister has shied away from interviews since his election last December, as have members of his cabinet.

Johnson’s reluctance to face the press could have something to do with am interview he had with the veteran journalist and caustic BBC interviewer Andrew Neil during the Conservative leadership race last summer. Neil, who had fired Johnson in a previous career as editor of the Spectator magazine, caught Johnson out on a question about a detail of international trade rules.

Johnson then refused to be interviewed by Neil who interviewed all the other party leaders during the December election campaign that he won with a majority of 80 parliamentary seats.

Even Piers Morgan, the Trump-and-Brexit-supporting host of the TV show Good Morning Britain, weighed in.

“Here’s my question, Prime Minister: why have you banned yourself and your entire cabinet from appearing on @GMB and other major media shows? Never had you down as a coward,” he tweeted.

The government’s press strategy is being run by Johnson’s closest aid Dominic Cummings, who has set up a network of spies in the restaurants and pubs around Westminster to report to him if government advisers are spotted meeting with journalists, according to The Sunday Times.

In a sign of how intertwined the establishment and the media are in the UK, and how difficult it is for those from outside the circle, Cummings’ wife, Mary Wakefield also a journalist, used to work with Johnson on the Spectator where she is now commissioning editor. She once claimed Johnson inappropriately squeezed her thigh under the table during a dinner.

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Although the UK has long been seen as a champion of free speech, unlike the United States, the concept is not enshrined in the constitution.

The international lobby group Reporters without Borders ranked the UK at only number 33 in its 2019 World Press Freedom Index below countries like Suriname and Jamaica. The US came in at number 48 while Hong Kong was ranked 73.