The Situation regarding Sue Gray’s Report
The Second Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, Sue Gray, released an update to her ongoing investigation into breaches of Covid-19 regulations within the heart of British Government, Number 10 Downing Street, yesterday. This, for many, is a disappointment, as all who have been following this story as it has been unfolding expected the full Sue Gray report to be released this week. However, the circumstances surrounding the release of the update are unprecedented to say the least.
Following evidence gathered by Sue Gray in the course of her enquiry, the Metropolitan Police have found that twelve of the sixteen events under scrutiny reach the requirements for a potential criminal breach of regulations, and have launched a criminal investigation into these twelve events in Number 10. Details of these twelve events could therefore not be addressed in the Gray report, as it may prejudice the ongoing police investigation. After the Met launched their investigation, Sue Gray had two options; release an abridged version of her report, which could only address four of the sixteen events, or wait until the Met inquiry is done, and release her report in full. The release of the update shows that she has taken the second option.
The update stresses that the full report is yet to be concluded, and that it would be inappropriate to pass judgement based on the update alone. Despite this, it seems that a majority of MPs, and indeed a majority of the British public, have already drawn their conclusions.
The fact that twelve gatherings in Downing Street are under police investigation shows at the very least, they were inappropriate given the restrictions in place at the time. Not only this, but the Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly and enthusiastically denied that any such events took place, and if they did, no rules were broken. This update, and the police investigation, show that he was lying when he denied the allegations in the House of Commons. Given that he has found to have been present at at least three of these gatherings, including some in his private flat, it negates the possibility that he inadvertently misled Parliament when he made his denials. He has wilfully misled Parliament, and wilfully misled the British public.
The Contents of the Update
In the general findings outlined in the update, Sue Gray points to ‘failures of leadership and judgement’ within Number 10, and that the events in question should not have been allowed to go ahead in the first place. She also finds that Downing Street suffers from ‘excessive consumption of alcohol in the workplace’, and suggests that the garden of Number 10 should be primarily for the Prime Minister, and official access to the garden should be restricted.
Gray also acknowledges that Number 10, while it has been growing rapidly, has not updated its internal structures accordingly, and is not fully fit for purpose anymore. In his statement to the House, the Prime Minister addressed only this last point, offering an apology for the way this issue has been handled, and committing to restructure Number 10 with a new ‘Office of the Prime Minister’, with its own permanent secretary.
Johnson’s Lies
Even as the Met investigation and Sue Gray’s subsequent update sets out plainly that rules were broken, and that the Prime Minister lied to Parliament and to the country, he still lies, he still denies and shifts blame and urges patience. To anyone not still blinded by his charade of buffoonery and personality-driven leadership, it is obvious that he has lied and lied consistently. How members of his Cabinet are still comfortable with continuing to defend his criminal activities across British media is lost on me.
The Prime Minister’s tactics in the wake of the Gray update are again, painfully obvious. He seeks to use the time between now and the conclusion of the Met inquiry to twist the result to his advantage, spin the outcome as much as humanly possible, and to find a way for the full Sue Gray report to not be published. If the full report is published, politically, the Prime Minister is finished.
He is not concerned with the welfare of the country. He is not concerned, as far as I can tell, even with the perception of his party or even his Government. He is only concerned with his own job security. Those still loyal to him are only loyal to his ability to win elections, not to his non-existent talent for politics or leadership. These are not the values that should be sought in a Prime Minister, and the fact that Tory MPs still support him shows a deep, endemic problem in the party.
The Commons Proceedings
Opposition Leader Sir Kier Starmer MP was the first to speak after the Prime Minister’s statement, delivering what many political commentators are calling the best speech of his career to date. Tory backbenchers sat in silence as he called on them to sack their leader, with the only discernible protest coming from the Tory frontbench as he accused them of degrading their offices by peddling the Prime Minister’s shameless defences of his inexcusable conduct.
The Prime Minister’s response was, unsurprisingly, belligerently tone-deaf. He accused Starmer of wanting to scrap NATO, something Starmer has never supported, and of failing to prosecute Jimmy Saville while he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service, a widely discredited right-wing talking point (in fact, Starmer launched an investigation into the mishandling of Saville’s case in 2013, criticising those involved).
Following Starmer’s speech, half of the questions and statements from the Conservative side of the House were critical of the Prime Minister’s leadership, with the rest being blindly sycophantic and obsequious. Chief among the critical voices from the Tory benches was former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May MP, who asked the Prime Minister whether he hadn’t read the rules, didn’t understand the rules, or thought the rules didn’t apply to him. There were other Conservative MPs who withdrew their support for the Prime Minister in their statements, urged him to release the full Sue Gray report upon its release, and expressed doubt in his leadership, in what had to be one of the Prime Minister’s worst days in Parliament.
Following May, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford MP delivered a scathing reproach of the Prime Minister, in which he repeatedly used unparliamentary language and accused him of misleading the house and of lying. After refusing to withdraw his comments, he left the chamber before the speaker could eject him.
Every single question from the opposition benches were witheringly critical, with opposition members now unanimous in their calls for the Prime Minister’s resignation. This shows that the majority of the House of Commons has lost confidence in his leadership. One would assume that now, those still loyal to him would offer their vocal support, which many Tory MPs did, and those still on the fence would keep quiet. The extensive Tory whipping operation, widely criticised for blackmail and bullying, seems to have failed.
What Happens Next?
Despite all of this, I am still sceptical that a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership is forthcoming. He is like Teflon; nothing sticks to him. This is surely the most serious matter he has faced in his career, but I still retain a small amount of confidence that, in the words of former Tory PM David Cameron, Boris Johnson, like a greased piglet, will find a way to wriggle out of this.
The country and the world is facing immense challenges at present; the national cost of living is soaring, together with rises in taxation and an NHS in crisis, there hasn’t been a more precarious time to live in the UK in recent memory. War is brewing in Eastern Europe, and the UK, a lynchpin in security cooperation in Europe and NATO, now seems weak and disorganised in the face of these successive scandals. This is a perception that Vladimir Putin is surely taking advantage of. Indeed, the Prime Minister was scheduled to make a call to Vladimir Putin at 4:00pm yesterday, but had to cancel as he was still in the House trying to keep his job.
It’s no use trying to ignore Johnson’s conduct and rule breaking to focus on these matters now; the damage is already done and continuing to be done. We now need a new leader, unmarred by controversy, who is honest and upstanding, who can demonstrate to the British public and to the international community everything that Putin isn’t. Boris Johnson isn’t that person. Any of the Cabinet frontrunners for PM after Johnson’s inevitable ousting will not be much of an improvement, but at least they won’t be him.
Shame
I am ashamed of Boris Johnson. He has no dignity, no honour, no integrity, no shame, nothing resembling a moral compass, and nothing resembling anything like the values and virtues displayed by any of the predecessors of his office. He is, without doubt, one of the worst Prime Ministers of post-war Britain. The rightful end of his leadership should have come about months ago, but I doubt that the concept of rightfulness is one he has a firm grasp of.
The decisions he has made have either already been widely criticised by anyone with a shred of political sense, or will in due course be realised as damaging and irresponsible. Every moment he spends clinging to the keys of Number 10, an address that he has irreparably damaged the reputation of, along with the office of its tenant, degrades the image of his Government, his party, and the country.
He is incapable of taking any real responsibility, and lacks the backbone to resign of his own volition. As such, Tory MPs need to find their courage and their patriotism, sack him immediately, and swiftly elect a new leader who can address the ongoing national and international turmoil with some semblance of moral leadership.
stay safe
/e
