6 Thursday May 26 2022 | the times
News
Quentin Letts
He trudged on, a husky
hunched in a blizzard
W
hen a member of
the Commons
abuses the prime
minister for his
“half-arsed
apologies”, when others yell
“hypocrite!” at the leader of the
opposition, when yet more jockey
to bellow “baloney” and “gutter”,
and when that professional
agitator on Parliament Square is
using his loudspeaker to rail at the
four winds with mountingderangement, it can be said
Westminster is teetering. At the
centre of it all was an uncombed,
corpulent figure, attacked from
many sides, plodding onwards, a
hunched husky in a blizzard.
Was Boris Johnson impervious to
these frosty hurricanoes? No. He
sounded pooped. He rambled,
allowing himself to be lured
off-script by heckles and the
onslaught of pelted hatred. Yet
onwards, somehow, he did keep
trudging, despite the cataracts and
oak-cleaving thunderbolts and the
scabrous germens that make
ungrateful man.
At breakfast the parliamentary
monitor screens flashed up the latest
security advice, “threat level:Political Sketch
Sue Gray set
out details of
the partiesOver nearly 50 pages Sue Gray’s report
sets out in excoriating detail the findings
of her investigation into 16 parties in
Downing Street during lockdown.
She refrains from passing judgment,
allowing the facts and the evidence in
the form of photos, messages and emails
to speak for themselves. They paint a
picture of a culture in Downing Street
where rule breaking not only took place
but was condoned and participated in
by the prime minister and his most
senior officials.
What have we learnt from Gray’s
investigation of the events that took
place in Downing Street from May 2020
to April 2021? Perhaps more
importantly, what do her findings mean
for Johnson and the inquiry into whe-
ther he misled parliament?
‘don’t wave bottles of wine’
Gray outlines the preparations made for
the “bring your own booze party” in the
Downing Street garden in May 2020
when gatherings of more than two
people were banned both outside and in.
The event was planned more than a
week in advance by officials in Johnson’s
private office who thought it would be a
good idea to take advantage of the “nice
weather” for some drinks.
About 200 people were invited and
alcohol was bought, although staff were
also told to bring their own owing to
fears that there would not be enough.
But they faced a problem: the daily
coronavirus press briefing the same aft-
ernoon in No 10 would mean people
coming in and out of Downing Street
with camera and sound equipment just
as the party was due to start.
Emails between Martin Reynolds,
Johnson’s principal private secretary,
and other officials make clear that they
were aware the event was not above
aboard. “Just to flag that the press con-
ference will probably be finishing
around that time, so helpful if people
can be mindful of... not walking around
waving bottles of wine etc,” an official
wrote. Reynolds said: “Will do my best!”
Lee Cain, Johnson’s communications
director, raised concerns with Reynolds.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” he wrote. “But a
200-odd person invitation for drinks in
the garden is somewhat of a comms risk
in the current environment.”
The party went ahead. Johnson at-
tended for about 30 minutes and others
carried on drinking for hours, with the
last leaving around 11pm. Days later
Reynolds sent a WhatsApp saying
“we seem to have got away with it”.
karaoke, fighting and vomit
As with the garden party, Gray’s report
reveals that senior staff were well aware
that a leaving do held in No 10 a month
later might also be in breach of the gov-
ernment’s own coronavirus rules.
The event was to mark the departure
of Hannah Young, an official who was
moving to New York to become British
consul-general. A week before-
hand, Reynolds messaged Cain
to discuss “handling”.
“Is it safer to do a larger
event indoors but with some
people carrying on outside aft-
erwards?” he asked. Cain replied:
“I’m not sure it works at all to be
honest” to which Reynolds
came back: “So are you saying
nothing for [Hannah]?”. Cain
replied: “I think it’s your deci-
sion my friend, not mind [sic]!
But it obviously comes with
rather substantial comms
risks.”
The event, described in
emails as “drinks which
aren’t drinks”, began in
News Politics
Vomit, fighting, karaoke... and
the cabinet room where 25 people, in-
cluding Dominic Cummings, the prime
minister’s chief adviser, and Simon
Case, his permanent secretary, gathered
to hear a succession of speeches.
Several officials then went on to an
“after party” outside the office of the
cabinet secretary. There, Gray reports,
Helen MacNamara, the deputy cabinet
secretary who had previously been in
charge of government ethics, brought
and set up a karaoke machine while
pizza and prosecco were provided.
At one stage Sir Mark Sedwill, who
was cabinet secretary from 2018 to Sep-
tember 2020 and is now Lord Sedwill,
came by and allowed them to use his
office. Gray noted: “There was excessive
alcohol consumption by some individu-
als. One individual was sick. There was
a minor altercation between two other
individuals.”happy birthday prime minister
Gray outlines how staff gathered in the
Cabinet Office for “sandwiches, snacks
and cans of beer” to wish Boris Johnson
happy birthday on June 17, 2020. Gray’s
account does not offer much more in-
formation about the well-documented
event. However, she appears to question
why Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was
fined for attending but Case, who be-
came cabinet secretary that September,
was not. She says neither man had been
invited but had arrived early for another
meeting that was due to take place in the
cabinet room afterwards.two metres apart?
Gray’s report will form the basis of an in-
quiry by the Commons’ privileges com-
mittee into whether Johnson intention-
ally misled MPs when he repeatedly
claimed that coronavirus rules were fol-
lowed in Downing Street.
One particular event that she reports
on will be difficult for the prime minister
as he prepares his defence. Last Decem-
ber Johnson told the House that on No-
vember 13, 2020, there had not been a
party to mark Cain’s departure. He
added: “I am sure that whatever hap-
pened, the guidance was followed and
the rules were followed at all times.”
The Gray report makes clear that the
guidance and rules were not followed
and Johnson himself was at the event.
At the time, she points out, indoor
gatherings of two or more people were
prohibited “except for permitted excep-
tions, including where the ‘gathering is
reasonably necessary for work purpos-
es’”. She adds that social-distancing
rules were also in force, stating that
people at work should remain two me-
tres apart or one metre where two me-
tres was not viable. Yet her report, and
the photos attached, show that social
distancing was not maintained and that
Johnson was drinking alcohol.no mention of the abba party
A startling omission from Gray’s report
is a detailed account of the so-called
Abba party, that was held in Johnson’s
own flat on the night of November
13, 2020. The event took place
following the announcement
that Cummings and Cain
were leaving No 10. Five spe-
cial advisers attended the
event, Gray says, during
which “food and drink
were available”.
Johnson arrived
at about 8pm with
“attendees leav-
ing at various
points” during
the night. Gray
says that theinformation she collected on the event
was “limited” because the “process of
obtaining evidence had only just
commenced when the Metropolitan
Police announced their investigations”.
She stopped her inquiries to avoid a
“prejudice to the police investigation”.
When it finished she considered whe-
ther to carry on investigating the event
but decided “it was not appropriate or
proportionate to do so”.
Given Johnson’s claims that the event
was within the rules this is likely to form
part of the privileges investigation into
whether he misled the Commons.the night before the funeral
One of the biggest controversies of the
scandal were the two parties held the
night before the Duke of Edinburgh’s fu-
neral. Exit logs reviewed by Gray show
that the last member of Downing Street
staff left the building at 4.20am on April
17, 2021, hours before the Queen sat
alone in St George’s Chapel in Windsor
to lay her husband to rest.
One party, marking the departure of
James Slack as director of communica-
tions, began around 6.30pm with wine
and beer for about 45 people. When the
party was planned and held, gatherings
of two or more people indoors, or more
than six people outdoors, were banned
unless for work purposes. Social-
distancing rules were still in place.
Downstairs in the basement, a laptop
was perched on top of a printer to play
music and people “drank excessively”
during a second leaving do for an un-
named official. Staff mingled between
the two parties until a security guard
moved Slack’s party into the garden so
the building could be locked. An insider
told the BBC that this was because the
party, described as a “lively event... a
general party with people dancing
around”, became too loud.
The second group joined and there
ended up being more than 20 people
outdoors “with a number of bottles of al-
cohol”. A swing and slide belonging to
Wilfred Johnson, the prime minister’s
son, were damaged. For most, the night
was over by 9.30pm when guards con-
tinued to lock up and they were encour-
aged to use the rear exit. Some returned
to the main building and “carried on
drinking alcohol until the early hours”.cleaning staff mocked
One thread throughout Gray’s report
was how facilities staff were left to pick
up the pieces the morning after. John-
son said that he had been “surprised and
disappointed” and apologised to them
in the Commons. Gray said “multiple
examples of a lack of respect and poor
treatment” were unacceptable.
On one occasion, cleaners came in
the morning after one party to find red
wine spilt down a wall and across boxes
of photocopier paper. At one gathering,
someone was sick. One former official
told a BBC Panorama investigation that
they would often arrive to find “a mess”.
“There were bottles, empties, rubbish
— in the bin, but overflowing, or indeed
sometimes left on the table,” they said.
Security guards were called out when
a panic alarm was accidentally set off,
accompanied by one of the police offi-
cers guarding No 10. The BBC has re-
ported that one security guard was
mocked when he challenged whether a
party should be happening.
Jim Melvin, chairman of the British
Cleaning Council, said that cleaners had
been driven “close to breaking point” by
the pandemic and treated with disre-
spect by people in Downing Street.
No one fears Johnson, Iain Martin,
page 31
Implications of the Gray report,
letters, page 32
Gray report brings shame on PM’s
administration, leading article, page 33Oliver Wright Policy Editor
Geraldine Scott Political Reporter