the times | Thursday May 26 2022 2GM 9
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Bland and a damp squib: Times writers react to parties dossier
DANIEL FINKELSTEIN
When the parties scandal began, Tory
MPs said that they would need to wait
for the Sue Gray report before deliver-
ing a verdict on what had happened.
And now we have it.
Did members of staff hold multiple
events which broke the rules? Yes. Did
they know they were breaking the
rules? Yes. Were these events planned
in advance? Yes. Did the prime minister
attend several of them? Yes. Would it
have been obvious to him that these
events broke the rules? Yes.
And did Sue Gray believe that he and
the cabinet secretary were responsible
for the culture that allowed this? Yes.
Unless she means someone else when
she talks about “the senior leadership at
the centre, both political and official”.
So when the MPs implied that they
would act once the facts were known,
what else were they expecting? How
much worse could it have been?
The rules to prevent coronavirus
from spreading were designed to stop
people dying. To set the rules and then
break them is completely unacceptable.
I learnt little from this report I didn’t
know. But that is what makes it so bad.IAIN MARTIN
Never, it was said, underestimate the in-
vestigatory skills of Sue Gray. She never
misses. Well, Sue Gray has missed.
The report published into the parties
that took place in Downing Street when
coronavirus restrictions were in placecontains much embarrassing evidence.
It was cheap wine on tap in there. At the
regular bashes held while the country
was locked up, staffers drank way too
much. There are accounts in the report
of someone being sick, and an
altercation.
When it comes to Gray delivering a
clear and consequential conclusion, she
fails to hit the target. It ends up being
rather bland, concluding with boiler-
plate bureaucratic waffle of the kind al-
ways used when something has gone
badly wrong yet the person at the top, it
has been decided, is not going to pay the
ultimate price.
There is much grave talk in the report
of lessons needing to be learnt. Gray is
encouraged this seems to be happening,with those learnt lessons being imple-
mented. This is code for an official de-
clining to blame the prime minister for
what happened on his watch.
In this way, not for the first time, Boris
Johnson has demonstrated the power
of delay and confusion. He has such a
gift for tying his critics in knots, delay-
ing the reckoning until it all becomes so
infuriating, or boring, or depressing
that he probably gets away with it.
Again.CLARE FOGES
The report was meant to land with a
crash that sent shockwaves throughout
SW1 and the country beyond. It was ex-
pected to present the unvarnished truth
in such a way that would send publicoutrage to new heights. In fact there is
something damp squib-like about it.
There is nothing much new here. We
have known for a long time that many
at the heart of government did not care
at all about their hypocrisy, only about
being caught. This is confirmed by the
most infuriating line in the report, the
prime minister’s former principal pri-
vate secretary Martin Reynolds’s boast
that “we seem to have got away with”
one of the drinks gatherings.
Whatever humble pie the prime min-
ister bolts down, we know he doesn’t
really care. We know any apology is a
self-preservation exercise. We know he
won’t resign. We know the only lasting
damage done by this report will not be
to his own career but to trust in politics.Lord Paddick, the former Met deputy
assistant commissioner, who is now a
Liberal Democrat peer.
In a statement on its website, the or-
ganisation said: “For the rule of law to
operate it must operate fairly, without
favour to the powerful. We will do what
we can to ensure it does.”
The Good Law Project said that it did
not understand the decision by police to
investigate and fine “some attendees
but not the prime minister”, adding:
“We can see no basis for holding junior
civil servants to a higher standard than
the prime minister.”
A force spokesman said: “The MPS
received a letter before claim on 25th
May 2022 and will respond to this letter
in due course.”House said in February this year that
the police officer was spoken to by Met
officers as well as the Gray investi-
gation, and “if we find officers knew
what was going on and should have in-
tervened we will follow up on that”. The
Times did not receive a response when
requesting an update yesterday.
The force is also facing legal action
from campaigners over its “apparent
failure to adequately investigate” John-
son’s attendance at the lockdown-
breaking parties.
The Good Law Project has written to
the force calling for answers and has
given it two weeks to respond before it
seeks a judicial review.
A pre-action letter published yester-
day said that the group is representingDetectives faced further questions
about their approach to the Downing
Street parties investigation after a
senior civil servant avoided a fine
despite being photographed at Boris
Johnson’s birthday party.
Simon Case, 43, now the cabinet
secretary and head of the civil service,
was photographed laughing opposite
the prime minister at the celebration in
June 2020. Sue Gray’s report revealed
that he was among officials who were
emailed in advance about the event in
the cabinet room. However, Case, who
according to reports told colleagues
that he would be fined, escaped any
penalties from Operation Hillman, the
Met’s inquiry into the lockdown-break-
ing parties.
Conversely Rishi Sunak, the chancel-
lor, who was not informed in advance
but turned up early for a meeting, was
fined. The prime minister, who was sur-
prised by the event, was also fined.
The Met is under pressure to publicly
explain its rationale behind Operation
Hillman, which it has so far refused to
do. Detectives also chose not to fine
Johnson even though he was photo-
graphed giving a toast at a party in No-
vember 2020. It is understood that
junior officials were fined for attending
the same event.
On Tuesday Sadiq Khan, who holds
the force to account as London mayor,
invoked a policing power which com-
pels the Met to hand over details of its
reasoning behind the issuing of fines.
Khan also requested that it make the
information public, citing public trust
and the integrity of the investigation.
Sir Stephen House, the acting com-
missioner, will be asked questions
about the force’s approach at the
London Assembly today. If he still de-
clines to give an explanation the mayor
can force the Met to issue one, or pub-
lish it himself.
The Met, which did not give Gray the
names of anyone who was fined, has
cited issues of confidentiality. How-
ever, this argument has become diffi-
cult to sustain after a series of photo-
graphs taken at the parties were leaked,
and given that the identities of the key
players are known.
The Met also did not answer ques-
tions yesterday over an incident in
which a police officer on No 10 door
duty responded to a panic alarm acci-
dentally triggered during the cheese
and wine event in the lead-up to Christ-
mas 2020. Gray’s report said that the of-
ficer and custodians on duty “observed
a large number of people” at the event
and one person giving a speech, the re-
port says.The senior civil servant
Simon Case was
among those gathered
in the cabinet room to
celebrate Boris
Johnson’s birthday in
June 2020. However,
unlike Johnson and
Rishi Sunak, above, Case
escaped without a fine,a fact the Metropolitan
Police are under
pressure to explain. Left,
Johnson reading the
Sue Gray reportNews
Met on the spot after top
civil servant spared fine
Fiona Hamilton Crime EditorTwo NHS nurses have settled
claims with Greater Manchester
police after they were wrongly
arrested and fined for breaching
coronavirus regulations.
Lawyers for Karen Reissmann
and Patricia Gallagher confirmed
that the force had acknowledged its
officers had “misunderstood” the
regulations when they fined one of
the nurses £10,000 and arrested and
fined the other.
The lawyers added that police had
paid compensation to both women
but declined to confirm the amount.
Reissmann, 61, who worked
throughout the pandemic, organised
a protest in March last year against
the government’s proposed 1 per
cent pay rise for NHS workers.
The demonstration involving 40
people was set to take place in St
Peter’s Square, Manchester, and the
organisers said that they would
ensure that social distancing would
be maintained and that masks and
hand sanitiser would be available.
Greater Manchester police told
Reissmann that the protest was not
permitted under the Covid-
regulations and could not go ahead.
She was fined £10,000 for
organising the demonstration and
received a caution.
Gallagher, who was 65 at the time
of the demonstration, was arrested.
Police officers de-arrested her but
she was fined £200 for contravening
the regulations.
The two women were obliged to
report the fines to their professional
body, the National MidwiferyPolice compensate two nurses
Jonathan Ames Legal EditorSUE GRAY REPORT/CABINET OFFICE/PA; ANDREW PARSONS/NO10 OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHERCouncil, which instructed lawyers to
challenge the penalties.
Yesterday lawyers for the two
women said that Greater
Manchester police had accepted
that Gallagher’s arrest was unlawful
and that the fines were wrongly
imposed as a result.
The fines have been withdrawn
but the lawyers representing the
two women said that senior officers
had refused to apologise for the
distress and professional
embarrassment they had caused.
Commenting on the settlement,
Reissmann said that the protest she
had organised “was lawful and
intended to improve the world, not
party in a flagrant abuse of the
rules”.
She added that “over 100,
people died in the UK from Covid-- Millions are on NHS waiting
lists. The prime minister should be
resigning over this, as well as his
parties.”
Emily-Jade Defriend, a solicitor at
Bindmans, the firm that represented
the nurses, said that the Covid-
regulations “did not introduce a
blanket ban on protest”.
“Greater Manchester police got it
wrong in imposing criminal
sanctions on Ms Reissmann and Ms
Gallagher.
“The gathering that Ms
Reissmann organised was not
frivolous, it was an important public
statement about how NHS workers
were being treated beyond the
weekly clap. It was a privilege to
work with these NHS stalwarts as
they stood up for the NHS and the
right to protest.”