He has purged his collaborators, the officials pay the fines and his party boos his critics
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fending off the opposition’s attempt to bring him down, following the publication of the long-awaited report by civil servant Sue Gray on illegal gatherings and parties in Downing Street during the pandemic. Gray’s is the penultimate investigation into what happened. The Police concluded theirs and a parliamentary committee has initiated the latest investigation.
The official’s final report analyzes eight illegal events, in which government employees gathered in Downing Street spaces to drink alcohol and fraternize. Work meetings were allowed by the rules that the Government had dictated, but not farewell or birthday parties. And the official blames the leaders for what happened.
Gray states that “Government leaders attended the events I investigated. Many of these events should not have been allowed, but lower-ranking officials believed that participating in these events was allowed because of the presence of the highest leaders. Leaders at the center, both political and administrative, must take responsibility for that culture.”
It describes a landscape in which Downing Street was an island in a country scared by lockdown orders. The consumption of alcoholic beverages increased markedly during the pandemic, but the population bought them in stores and supermarkets to drink them at home. The staff and leaders at the top of the Government took them to the office.
Bins overflowing with bottles and leftovers from the previous day’s party. Farewell photos published by Gray show Johnson toasting, drinking; there are bottles of alcohol on a table. The official includes in her report the note that customs have changed in Downing Street after the unveiling of the ‘partygate’.
Aides to Johnson and Gray have disputed these days in public who called whom, after it was revealed that they met last week, but the prime minister thanked him for his report, in the first words of his statement before the House of Commons. He later latched on to her acknowledgment that things have changed. Important aides to the prime minister have been purged.
The chosen one
The Police have issued 126 fines – 53 to 35 men, 73 to 48 women -, but the prime minister, present at so many parties according to photographs and testimonies, has received only one, of about 60 euros, for attending a brief party organized by his wife to celebrate her birthday. Johnson’s good lawyers would have filled out the police questionnaires better than the young officials, according to some media.
He developed before the Commons the argument that would have saved him. Extremely long hours were worked, under pressure to get the pandemic policy right. He went to those meetings to show his appreciation for that effort. His presence was brief and he was unaware of what happened after his departure, which included drunkenness, vomiting, fights. He always told the truth to Parliament and the public when he denied that the rules had been broken.
“Let’s turn the page,” Johnson asked. He invoked the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine to end partygate. “This farce is a consequence of him not telling the truth at the beginning,” Labor Keir Starmer reproached him. He also had “set the standards of conduct at the level of a snake’s gut.” Starmer has promised to resign if he is fined for a controversial meeting he had with colleagues over beer.
The Conservative Tobias Ellwood, one of a group of ‘Tory’ MPs with military backgrounds who politely loathe Johnson for various reasons, exclaimed “I’m booed by my own parliamentary group!”, when he asked his members if they were prepared to defend in public the conduct of the prime minister. Liberal Democrat Ed Davey told Johnson that he “doesn’t really regret it, he just regrets getting caught.”
The British leader may not have the best personal reputation, but skill and fortune are with him time and time again to prevent his downfall. This time the Holy Ghost descends to rescue him from the dragging debate over Gray’s report. Parliament closes tomorrow for the Whitsun (Pentecost) recess. And it will reopen on Monday, June 6, after the celebrations of the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
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