10 2GM Wednesday May 25 2022 | the times
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ties saga. Tom Tugendhat, chairman of
the foreign affairs committee, refused
to say on Times Radio whether John-
son should be replaced as leader.
“This is something I’m talking to col-
leagues about,” he said. “And the reason
I’m not giving you a yes/no answer is
because this isn’t a binary question. It’s
about a team... we need to focus on
who is going to lead us into the future.”
David Simmonds, a Conservative
MP, said the images that show Johnson
raising a glass and surrounded by wine
bottles “suggest what was said at the
dispatch box, that there had been no
party, was not the case”.
Grant Shapps, the transport secre-
tary, insisted that Johnson did not
believe he was at a lockdown-breaking
party. “I see his red box is there, which
is his work box, it looks to me like he
goes down on his way out of the office
and thanks the staff,” he told Sky News.
But sources present have said that
the event was instigated by Johnson,
who gathered the staff, made a speech
and stayed for about 25 minutes.
Confidence in political system’s integrity
is at stake, leading article, page 31News Politics
We kept on partying because PM
Henry Zeffman
Associate Political Editor
Steven Swinford Political Editor
Boris Johnson at a cabinet meeting yesterday. New claims about his behaviourQ&A
How bad is the Sue
Gray report likely
to be?
Senior officials have
variously described
Gray’s report as
“damning” and
excoriating. It runs to
about 40 pages and
includes details of more
than a dozen parties
alongside photographs
of some of them. The
report is expected to
criticise Boris Johnson
personally for both his
leadership and his
attendance at some
events. It is also
expected to name at
least a dozen senior civil
servants who were
viewed as “ringleaders”
in organising events. A
source familiar with the
report said that the
“compound” impact was
particularly damaging,
with extensive details of
a succession of parties.
Expect stories of all-
night parties, karaoke,
brawls and excessive
drunkenness.What will happen
today?
Downing Street is
expecting to receive the
report this morning and
it is likely to be
published shortly
afterwards. Johnson will
then have prime
minister’s questions as
normal before being
questioned on Gray’s
findings in parliament,
and then at a news
conference. In the
evening he will face
Tory backbenchers at a
private meeting of the
1922 Committee.What will the prime
minister’s defence be?
He is likely to repeat his
previous apologies andinsist it is time to move
on to more important
matters such as the
cost-of-living crisis. He
will point to changes in
the No 10 operation and
repeat his insistence
that he did not realise
the lockdown
gatherings broke the
rules because he
thought they counted
as work events. Durham
police’s investigation
into Sir Keir Starmer is
likely to be used to
suggest equivalence
between the
government and
Labour. Johnson is also
expected to highlight
the fact he received
only one fine, for which
he has already
apologised.How does uncertainty
about why police
issued some people
with fines but not
others affect the
fallout?
Arguably, the lack of
clarity is helpful for
Johnson. It allows
ministers to argue that
the prime minister has
been cleared of
wrongdoing over any
event for which he was
not fined. MPs reluctant
to oust the prime
minister have a basis on
which to say the events
did not break the rules.Will the Met say
anything else?
Sadiq Khan, the London
mayor, has invoked the
Policing Protocol Order
2011, a power he has in
his role of holding the
force to account. It
requires the police force
to notify and brief him
on “any matter or
investigation on which
the [mayor] may need
to provide public
assurance”. The Met
must respond to Khan’s
request for further
details of its rationalefor issuing fines. If it
does not make the
information public, the
mayor can force it to or
publish himself. He cited
public trust and the
integrity of the
investigation in his
reasons for seeking the
information. The force
has until now stood firm
and cited issues of
confidentiality, although
this has become more
difficult to argue since
the photographs were
leaked. The Met’s failure
to explain has left it
vulnerable to
allegations that its
officers protected the
country’s most senior
politician at the expense
of junior workers who
received the majority of
fines. The lack of clarity
is pushing the Met on to
the defensive, but the
force has been at the
heart of a previous
scandals and its leaders
have adopted a similar
stance.How will MPs react?
The million-dollar
question is whether
anything in the report
makes Tory MPs
reconsider their
reluctance to move
against the prime
minister. They will no
longer be able to avoid
questions by saying
they must wait for Sue
Gray, but Johnson is
hoping they will switch
straight to saying it is
time to move on. In
recent weeks the
danger to Johnson
seems to have receded
as senior backbenchers
hesitated about acting
against the prime
minister and others felt
they could live with the
hit to the polls delivered
by the scandal. If there
are any revelations that
prompt a fresh wave of
public anger, that could
change.Downing Street employees have said
they thought parties held during lock-
down had been approved by Boris
Johnson because he “was grabbing a
glass for himself”.
Three “insiders” told a BBC Pano-
rama documentary of chaotic, crowded
gatherings at the heart of government
in which people sat on others’ laps and
rooms were left strewn with debris.
The disclosures intensify the pres-
sure on the prime minister before the
publication of Sue Gray’s report into
lockdown gatherings, which is expect-
ed to be published today.
One of the BBC’s sources said they
felt they were licensed by the prime
minister to attend the gatherings, on
the basis that he was there.
They said: “He may have just been
popping through on the way to his flat
because that’s what would happen. You
know, he wasn’t there saying: ‘This
shouldn’t be happening.’ He wasn’t say-
ing: ‘Can everyone break up and go
home? Can everyone socially distance?
Can everyone put masks on?’ No, he
wasn’t telling anybody that. He was
grabbing a glass for himself.”
Johnson received one fine from the
Metropolitan Police after it investigat-
ed 12 events in Downing Street and
Whitehall. The leak to ITV News of a
photo from one of the events for which
Johnson was not fined has led to further
questions about the culture in Down-
ing Street.
One person present at the event — a
leaving party for Lee Cain, the depart-
ing director of communications, on
November 13, 2020 — told the docu-
mentary: “There were about 30 people,
if not more, in a room. Everyone was
stood shoulder to shoulder, some
people on others’ laps... one or two
people.”
A party on April 16 last year, the night
before the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral,
was said by one witness to be a “lively
event... a general party with people
dancing around”. A source said the
event was so loud that security guards
told those present to leave the building
and go outside.
“So everyone grabbed all the drinks,
the food, everything, and went into the
garden,” the source said. “We all sat
around the tables drinking. People
stayed the night there.”
The insiders said the events were
“every week”, with invitations for press
office drinks listed in the diary as
“WTF” or “Wine-Time Friday”.
A former official described often
turning up at No 10 to find it “a mess”.
The witness said:“There were bottles,
empties, rubbish — in the bin but over-
flowing — or left on the table.”
One said a security guard, known as
a custodian, was mocked when he tried
to halt a party. The insider said: “I
remember when a custodian
tried to stop it all and he was
just shaking his head, being
like: ‘This shouldn’t be
happening.’ ”
In a further awkward
revelation for No 10, a
fresh image emerged
last night of an event
the Daily Mirror said
was a Downing
Street gathering on
November 17, 2020.
The picture
showed a man stand-
ing at a table with nine bot-
tles of wine, doughnuts and
miniature cakes.
Johnson is expecting to re-
ceive the report by Gray, a
senior civil servant, about
11am today. It will be published online
soon afterwards. After prime
minister’s questions, Johnson
will make a statement to the
Commons, where he is like-
ly to receive harsh condem-
nation, potentially including
criticism from his own side.
In the evening he will
speak to Tory MPs pri-
vately and hold a tele-
vised press conference.
Johnson is likely to
apologise repeatedly
and to emphasise that
he has changed much
of his Downing Street
team and wants to
move on.
Yet the disclosure
of the photo from
Cain’s leaving party
has reignited con-
cerns on the Tory
benches about the par-Dominic Cummings
yesterday. He is
blamed for leaksBoris Johnson is likely to face demands
to provide details of his secret meeting
with Sue Gray to a powerful Commons
committee.
The privileges committee will soon
begin an investigation into whether the
prime minister knowingly misled MPs
over parties held in Downing Street
during lockdowns. As part of the in-
quiry, the committee is likely to take
evidence on the meeting between Gray
and Johnson, sources said.
The Times revealed yesterday that in
a meeting earlier this month the prime
minister suggested to Gray, a senior
civil servant, that there was no longer
any point in releasing her findings
because the details were now “all out
there”.
The privileges committee, a rarely
used body with a Conservative major-
ity, has been given the task of examin-Investigation to focus on
ing statements made by Johnson “on
the floor of the House about the legality
of activities in 10 Downing Street and
the Cabinet Office under Covid regula-
tions”. If the committee finds that John-
son knowingly misled MPs then under
the terms of the ministerial code he
would be expected to resign.
A source close to the committee said
they expected its members to take evi-
dence from both Gray and Johnson. “Of
course the committee will want to have
all the evidence possible, and that inevi-
tably means speaking to the prime min-
ister and to Sue Gray,” the source said.
There is anxiety at the top of govern-
ment, too, about the prospect of Gray
giving evidence to the committee. One
government source said there was
widespread incredulity at what ap-
peared to be Downing Street-sanc-
tioned attacks on Gray ahead of the re-
lease of her report.
They included claims that she was
“playing politics” over the parties scan-Henry Zeffman
Oliver Wright Policy Editor