The Times - UK (2022-05-25)

the times | Wednesday May 25 2022 V2 31

Leading articles

Ms Gray’s own independence and impartiality

had been called into question by the prime minis-

ter’s allies.

Mr Johnson’s behaviour, and that of his officials,

suggests a Downing Street operation seriously

rattled at what may emerge from Ms Gray’s report.

That is hardly surprising. As is clear from the leak

of a photograph of one of the Downing Street par-

ties, the conclusion of the police inquiry has not

drawn a line under the scandal. Instead, the

Metropolitan Police’s own independence is now in

question. The photo shows the prime minister de-

livering a toast at the leaving party for a press offi-

cer, surrounded by bottles of wine and spirits. Sub-

sequent reports suggest the prime minister was

the instigator of the party, that there were about 30

people in the room, some sitting on each other’s

laps, and that Mr Johnson stayed for 20 to 25 min-

utes. Yet while some junior officials at the gather-

ing received fines, Mr Johnson did not.

The Met has serious questions to answer as to

how it reached its decisions if it is to counter the

suspicion it has succumbed to political pressure or

allowed political considerations to influence its in-

quiry. Even before the latest revelations of a wide-

spread culture of drinking in Downing Street, in-

cluding weekly “wine time Fridays” in which the

prime minister was allegedly an enthusiastic par-

ticipant, there were doubts about the Met’s in-

vestigation. Why did most fixed penalty notices go

to junior civil servants but not senior officials and

politicians at the same events? Why was Mr John-

son fined for only one of the six parties that he

attended where the police concluded lockdown

rules had been broken? The Met must come clean

or suffer a further loss of public confidence.

Nonetheless, the biggest questions are for Mr

Johnson to answer. The most serious charge he

faces is that he deliberately misled parliament,

which would be a resignation offence. On the face

of it, the leaked party photo is hard to reconcile

with his insistence to parliament that there was no

party in Downing Street on November 13, 2020.

Similarly the multiple fines for multiple events is

hard to reconcile with his claim that no lockdown

rules were broken and that all guidance was

followed at all times. Nor are these trivial issues, as

Mr Johnson’s allies suggest. At stake is public con-

fidence in the integrity of Britain’s political system,

never more important than at a time of geo-

political crisis and profound domestic challenges.

Ms Gray will deliver her report today. If Mr John-

son is to draw a line under the matter, he had better

produce some ironclad explanations.

week balloted more than 40,000 of its members at

Network Rail and 15 train operators on whether to

call a national rail strike. They voted overwhelm-

ingly in favour, it was announced last night. The

dispute, again, is over the drive for efficiencies.

The Tube network in London has already been

severely disrupted on two days in March by RMT

strikes. And despite the likely pressures on the

network due to celebrations on the jubilee week-

end, the union is imposing an overtime ban from

June 3. The irony is that TfL denies it has any plans

for redundancies, whereas the union’s obstruc-

tionism underlines there would be ample justifica-

tion for these if they existed.

The union’s hostility is directed against not only

TfL and the rail companies, but also the travelling

public and the taxpayer. All these companies

suffered a steep shortfall in revenues during the

pandemic, while they have high fixed costs. TfL

still relies on emergency funding from the Trea-

sury to cover its operating costs and it has an obli-

gation to provide value to the taxpayer for the

money. Hence, quite properly, it is pursuing this

with an independent review of its pension scheme

and by proposing not to fill posts that become va-

cant once workers retire or leave. The same applies

to the national rail sector, which received pan-

demic funding and now seeks to reduce its costs.

The employers are scarcely being draconian.

On the contrary, the new trains on the Elizabeth

Line will still have some 140 drivers in total even

though the system is fully automated and, in its

central section, on entirely new track. TfL ought to

be deploying driverless trains. The objection from

the RMT is not about safety but politics: the

union’s are bizarre and ugly. Alex Gordon, its

president, gave a speech in March declaring that

Nato’s strategy regarding Ukraine “relies upon the

promotion of the resurgence of fascism”. This risi-

ble calumny, echoing Kremlin disinformation,

should be enough to consign any public figure to

shamed obscurity.

The government should break the hold that this

union has on the nation’s transport links. Grant

Shapps, the transport secretary, has proposed en-

forcing minimum standards of service in the event

of rail strikes. This measure cannot come too soon

to deprive a far-left union of its ability to disrupt.

been punished for suspiciously not using their

smartphones enough.

The files show that from 2017 to 2018, at least

12 per cent of all Uighur adults were detained.

Their children, as young as six, with shaven heads,

often appear in mugshots. China continues to

claim the camps in which they were held were cen-

tres of re-education, and were often attended vol-

untarily. When moving between facilities, detain-

ees routinely wore blindfolds, handcuffs and

shackles. Documents reveal that guards were in-

structed to shoot escapees on sight.

This week Michelle Bachelet, the United

Nations representative for human rights, will be in

Xinjiang. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has de-

manded that she be given “full and unfettered

access to the region”. China, which has called

accusations of genocide “the lie of the century”,

seems unlikely to follow her advice. Such obstruc-

tiveness would be entirely in keeping with a cul-

ture of exceptionalism and denialism that, despite

the sweeping changes in Chinese society over the

past decades, remains as pervasive as ever. Yet

through leaks, reporting and testimony, the world

can already see the truth. More nations must have

the courage to speak it.

Moment of Truth

Boris Johnson had better have some ironclad explanations for his conduct when Sue

Gray delivers her long-awaited report on Downing Street lockdown parties today

For months, Boris Johnson has refused to answer

any questions about the Downing Street lock-

down parties scandal, telling everyone instead

that they must wait for Sue Gray’s report. So it

came as a surprise to discover that the prime min-

ister at a secret meeting this month had tried to

persuade the senior civil servant to drop her report

altogether. As Steven Swinford, our political edi-

tor, reported yesterday, Mr Johnson had asked Ms

Gray: “Is there much point in doing it now that it’s

all out there?” His implication was that the con-

clusion of the police investigation into the parties,

which resulted in 126 fixed penalty notices being

issued to Downing Street staff, including one each

for Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor,

should draw a line under the matter.

This attempt to interfere in what was supposed

to be an independent investigation is disturbing in

itself. So too is the way that Downing Street misled

the press and public regarding the circumstances

by which this secret meeting came about. For two

days officials denied reports that Mr Johnson’s

office had requested the meeting with Ms Gray, in-

sisting she had asked to see the prime minister.

They then changed their story on Monday, but not

before a cabinet office press officer helping Ms

Gray had been relieved of his responsibilities and

Transport Trouble

Government and employers should crack down on trade union militancy

Spending on infrastructure can boost long-term

economic growth by improving efficiency and the

Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, has

every prospect of doing this. The network extends

from Reading in Berkshire and Heathrow in west

London to Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in

southeast London. It opened to the public yester-

day and promises to cut journey times for millions

of passengers who cross the capital.

Yet rail travellers face an obstacle that is beyond

the ability of transport planners to control. The

National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport

Workers (RMT) is engaged in a campaign of

strikes that cause intense inconvenience to the

public. The union’s demands have no justification.

Its tactics draw attention to the chasm separating

engineering sophistication epitomised in the new-

est element of the rail network and union militan-

cy that recalls the chaos of the 1970s and 1980s.

The RMT is planning a 24-hour strike on the

London Underground on June 6, the day after the

Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend, in fur-

therance of a dispute against plans by Transport

for London (TfL) to cut costs. The union also this

Faces of Genocide

Beijing can no longer deny the oppression of the Uighurs

It is over a year since the United States first re-

ferred to China’s actions in Xinjiang province as

“genocide”. This week, documents obtained by

hackers and leaked to foreign media have shown

the faces of 3,000 Uighurs among those detained.

Some are children. Some appear to have been jail-

ed just for looking Muslim.

Other charges appear to have included listening

to “illegal lectures”. In one case, a man was jailed

for ten years for a few days of studying Islamic

scripture with his grandmother. Many charges

appear to be based on mobile phone surveillance,

while others, also with sentences of ten years, have

UK: Nicola Sturgeon becomes the longest-
serving Scottish first minister, at 2,744 days.
US: Twitter holds its shareholders’ meeting
(6pm BST), with Jack Dorsey expected to
quit its board.

The meadows of
Bradford are in full
bloom. Having
embraced No-Mow
May, many of the
city’s council-owned
areas have become
beautiful, mini-nature reserves. The sloping
banks of Odsal Stadium, home to the
Bradford Bulls, and one of the most historic
rugby grounds in the world, are bejewelled
with the pink lights of common vetch, the
lemon of mouse-ear hawkweed and even the
sun-coloured flowers of the whin bush.
Once a quarry, then a landfill site, Odsal is
now a sports ground with a difference. The
rugby team might be currently struggling
but what other sporting venue is lit up by
the spectacle of common blue butterflies
dancing over its pastures, as wild bees
forage? jonathan tulloch

In 1659 Richard Cromwell stood down as
lord protector of England as a result of
financial and constitutional difficulties.

Sir Ian McKellen,
pictured, actor, The Lord
of the Rings and The X
Men film series, Mr
Holmes (2015), 83; Biddy
Baxter, producer and
editor, BBC TV children’s
magazine programme
Blue Peter (1962-88), 89; Sir Donald Brydon,
chairman, Sage Group (2012-21, business
software company), London Stock Exchange
Group (2015-2019), 77; Alistair Burt,
Conservative MP for North East
Bedfordshire (2001-19), international
development and Middle East minister
(2017-19), 67; Stuart Chambers, chairman,
Anglo American, Travis Perkins (2017-21),
66; Julian Clary, comedian, 63; Simon
Fowler, singer-songwriter, Ocean Colour
Scene, The Day We Caught the Train (1996),
57; Prof Alice Gast, chemical engineer,
president, Imperial College London, 64;
Anne Heche, actress, Donnie Brasco (1997),
53; Jamaica Kincaid, writer, A Small Place
(1988), 73; Baroness (Zahida) Manzoor,
chairwoman, Financial Ombudsman
Service, legal services ombudsman (2003-11),
64; Liudmyla Monastyrska, soprano, 47;
Cillian Murphy, actor, Peaky Blinders (2013-
22), 46; Dame Alison Nimmo, chartered
surveyor, chief executive of the Crown
Estate (2012-19), 58; Frank Oz, puppeteer,
The Muppet Show and Yoda in the Star Wars
films, and director, Little Shop of Horrors
(1986), 78; Sir Howard Panter, co-founder,
Ambassador Theatre Group, joint chief
executive and creative director, Trafalgar
Entertainment, 73; Octavia Spencer, actress,
Hidden Figures (2016), 52; Geraint Thomas,
cyclist, double Olympic gold medallist (2008,
2012), and winner of the Tour de France
(2018), 36; Dame Clare Tickell, chief
executive, Hanover Housing Association
(2014-18), 64; Anthea Turner, broadcaster,
Blue Peter (1992-94), GMTV (1994-96), 62;
Paul Weller, singer-songwriter and former
member of the Jam, Going Underground
(1980), 64; Jonny Wilkinson, rugby union
player, England (1998-2011), 43.

“The imagination of nature is far, far greater
than the imagination of man.” Richard
Feynman, American physicist, The Value of
Science (1955)

Nature notes

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