6 2GM Tuesday May 24 2022 | the times
News
she’s a Labour person and it’s absolute
crap.”
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, is
expected to come in for criticism in the
report despite escaping a fine from the
Metropolitan Police for attending gath-
erings in Downing Street.
No 10 has drawn up a plan to contain
the fallout from the report, which is ex-
pected to directly criticise Johnson and
senior figures around him. On the re-
lease of the report, he will go to the
Commons to offer an explanation
before addressing his backbenchers at a
meeting of the 1922 Committee behind
closed doors tomorrow.
A No 10 source said: “We’re keen to
move on. The report deserves its mo-
ment in the spotlight to be scrutinised
but at the end of the day we want to be
getting on with the job.”
Johnson originally asked Case to lead
the investigation but he had to step
aside when The Times revealed that he
had hosted a 2020 Christmas party quiz
in his office. No 10 insisted last night
that the prime minister retained full
confidence in his cabinet secretary. A
senior government source said the re-
port made “very grim reading” for Case.
Fobbing off the public,
letters, page 28
Prime minister can trivialise everything,
Hugo Rifkind, page 27Junior female civil servants working in
Downing Street say they have been
made scapegoats for co-operating with
Sue Gray’s inquiry and telling the truth
about parties in Downing Street that
broke lockdown rules.
Of the 126 fines issued by the Metro-
politan Police during the course of its
investigation, 53 were imposed on 35
men and 73 on 48 women.
Whitehall sources said that the fines
had disproportionately fallen on junior
women working in Downing Street and
that more senior male staff had not
been fined.
They highlighted young civil ser-
vants who had been fined for respond-
ing to an email telling them to assemble
in the cabinet room to wish Boris John-
son happy birthday in June 2020.
Whereas some junior officials who
attended were penalised, Simon Case,
the cabinet secretary who was also in
the room, did not receive a fixed-penal-
ty notice.
One source said: “A lot of junior
women in the building felt a moral
responsibility for the situation andJunior women say they’re
engaged wholeheartedly with Sue
[Gray] while more senior people appear
to have been much more careful in
what they disclosed.
“People were told to be honest with
Sue and that they wouldn’t incriminate
themselves. They were told the investi-
gation was about the wider culture in
Downing Street.
“Then the Met got involved and
everything they had said was handed
over to the police as evidence. As a
result they were the ones who
got fined. In contrast senior people who
were more circumspect in what they
said to Sue or did not co-operate appear
to have got away with it.”
Another source said that female
aides who had organised some of the
leaving parties on behalf of senior male
colleagues had been “allowed to take
the fall” for the events. “It is not as if
No 10 is a gender-balanced workplace,”
the source said.
“Yet why is it that far more women
have been fined than men? The truth is
that it was the junior women who
didn’t get lawyers involved, were
honest with Sue Gray and have been
completely let down by the senior menOliver Wright Policy EditorBoris Johnson suggested that Sue Gray
should drop her plans to publish her
report into lockdown-breaking parties
in No 10 during a secret meeting.
Downing Street admitted yesterday
that it had requested the face-to-face
consultation between the senior civil
servant and the prime minister earlier
this month but refused to disclose what
was discussed.
Two Whitehall sources said the
prime minister suggested that Gray did
not need to publish her full report,
given the investigation by Scotland
Yard.“He asked her is there much point
in doing it now that it’s all out there,” a
source said. “He was inferring that she
didn’t need to publish the report.”
Another insider said: “They were
exploring this idea of not having any
report. It was being talked about [in
Downing Street]. But politically they
realised they couldn’t do it.”
Gray found herself at the centre of a
briefing war at the weekend after No 10
claimed at first that she had instigated
the meeting with Johnson.
A press officer who works for Gray
was removed from the role after a
briefing war in which critics claimed
that Gray had been “enjoying the lime-
light a little too much”.
Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to
the Treasury, repeated the claim yester-
day that Gray had instigated the meet-
ing but criticised the personal attacks
on her. A few hours later No 10 admit-
ted that it had requested the meeting.
The Times has been told that it was
organised at the request of Samantha
Jones, the permanent secretary at
No 10. Johnson was said to be “apoplec-
tic” about a report in The Times sug-
gesting that Gray would criticise him
for the culture in No 10 and his attend-
ance at events.
It was suggested that the meeting was
instigated after a report in this news-
paper implied that Gray’s findings were
so damaging that Johnson could be left
with no choice but to quit.
A government source dismissed the
claim, saying that the meeting was
organised to discuss “handling and
choreography” around publication of
the report.
Jones asked Gray to set up the meet-
ing on her online calendar, which she
did. The fact that Gray set up the date
enabled No 10 to claim, on a technical-
ity, that she instigated the meeting,
“She is very pissed off,” a friend of
Gray said. “The reason it’s difficult for
Sue is that this report is critical of civil
servants and some civil servants are
saying it’s terrible and you are blaming
us — and all these politicians have got
away with it.
“The civil service has been her life,
where does she go from here? She is not
someone who wants to go off and sell
her memoirs. She could earn a few bob
but she’s not going to do that.”
Another friend said Gray “wants
done with it”. The ally said: “She’s been
stitched up by No 10. She did this report
at the prime minister’s request.”
Gray is said to have been particularly
aggrieved after the Guido Fawkes
website published a picture of
her with Baroness Jowell, a
former Labour cabinet minis-
ter who died of brain cancer
in 2018.
The friend said: “They pub-
lished a picture of her
with her son and Tessa
Jowell and they are try-
ing to make out that
News Politics
PM called Gray to meeting and
Steven Swinford Political Editor The list of partygoers
Boris Johnson
The prime minister was accused of
attending six parties in Downing
Street during the lockdown but was
fined for attending only one. Gray’s
report is expected to confirm his
attendance at each of these parties
but it will not pass judgment on
whether they breached the rules.
More problematic for him will be his
repeated claims to MPs that he
believed that Covid rules were
followed at all times. A photograph
was disclosed yesterday of
Johnson drinking at a leaving do for
Lee Cain, his director of
communications. Johnson has
denied that this amounted to a
party. It will be investigated as part
of a Common privileges committee
inquiry into whether Johnson
knowingly misled MPs.
Carrie Johnson
The prime minister’s wife has been
fined for attending her husband’s
birthday party in the cabinet room.
The Gray report may reveal further
details of the “Abba party” in
Downing Street with some of her
allies after the departure of Cain in
November 2020.
Dominic Cummings
The former chief adviser to Johnson
has played a key role in the scandal.
He was the first to reveal details of
the “bring your own booze” party in
the Downing Street garden during
the first lockdown. He has
repeatedly said that Johnson broke
the rules and should resign.
Lee Cain
A longstanding ally of Cummings,
Cain left Downing Street in
November 2020 after he lost a
No 10 power struggle over the
appointment of Allegra Stratton as
the prime minister’s press secretary.
Nevertheless Johnson was
photographed at Cain’s leaving do
when lockdown restrictions were in
place.
Simon Case
Britain’s most senior civil servant
and the youngest cabinet secretary
ever was implicated in several
parties including a quiz night held
for members of his private office. He
was also at the Johnson birthday
celebration but was not fined. Gray’s
report is expected to be critical of
Case and his civil service team.
Martin Reynolds
Martin Reynolds was a few months
into a posting as ambassador to
Libya when he was recalled in 2019
to become Johnson’s principal
private secretary (PPS), with
responsibility for ensuring that
Covid rules were followed. He sent
the infamous email inviting staff to
the “bring your own booze” party in
the Downing Street garden during
the lockdown in May 2020. He has
since been moved to a senior role in
the Foreign Office.
Mark Sedwill
Case’s predecessor as cabinet
secretary went to at least one of the
Whitehall gatherings but was not
fined by the police.
Helen MacNamara
Sue Gray’s successor as the
government’s ethics chief
had to apologise last
month after she was
fined for attending a
leaving do in the Cabinet
Office during lockdown.Lee Cain’s leaving
party was attended
by Boris Johnson