More festivals discovered in Downing Street, Johnson present on six occasions

Ministers and politicians who had just ordered British citizens to stay indoors never missed an opportunity to uncork bottles to celebrate anything without masks

Boris Johnson pretends nothing has happened and hopes that the history of the Downing Street parties is now a thing of the past, but the Labor opposition and the British newspapers are not letting go. Sue Gary’s internal investigation found that other Prosecco parties were held at the government headquarters, six of which the premier participated directly. Ministers and politicians who had just ordered citizens to stay indoors never missed an opportunity to uncork bottles to celebrate anything from birthdays to retirements without masks.

Sue Gray, the upright Cabinet Bureau official whose job is to investigate malpractice within the government, is furious with Scotland Yard, who prevented her from disclosing her entire relationship on the grounds that she police are in turn investigating the same parties and the same people. Nobody doubts that the police chief, Cressida Dick, wanted to do Johnson a favor, watering down the investigation and postponing the conclusions to who knows when. Gray had questioned 70 witnesses and collected 300 photographs, some of which portrayed the premier with the glass in his hand. Evidence of the parties, with the names of the participants, was collected in 500 pages of documents now in fact seized by Scotland Yard, which recommended that she make only “minimal references” to the parties in her report so as not to jeopardize her own investigations.

Gray had to hand over a measly 12-page memo to the government, but he doesn’t seem to have any intention of covering it up. The investigation of him, it was discovered yesterday, revealed parties of which nothing was yet known, such as the one organized at number 10 Downing Street on January 14, 2021, in full pandemic, in honor of two secretaries who were retiring. Johnson’s opponents awaited the Gray report to file a motion of no confidence against the premier by sending letters to the 1922 Committee, the conservative party’s oversight body. The last to do so was former minister Tobias Ellwood, but it is not known how many letters have already been sent and it takes at least 54 to call the vote.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is following the obligatory path of all leaders in difficulty internally: first, take time by getting help from someone, for example Scotland Yard; pleading innocent or, if that’s not quite possible, pleading sorry and apologizing, which he did on Monday in Parliament; torpedo some collaborators by making believe that it is his fault; announce a populist agenda that makes citizens happy; distract everyone by engaging in some important foreign front, such as the crisis in Ukraine or the resolution of the problems left unresolved by Brexit.

Johnson thus left for Kiev as if he were to solve the world’s problems, but was ridiculed by Russian commentators, who asked him how a leader in the midst of a Prosecco abuse scandal in government offices could think of solve the Ukrainian problem. Not even Putin wanted to talk to him, canceling the expected phone call. On the home front, Leveling Up Minister Michael Gove announced 12 “missions” to be implemented by 2030 to improve health, living standards, transport, fight crime, well-being and whatever else can be done. to improve. The premier has also promised aid to numerous communities, with rainfalls of funding that always push up the popularity index. Johnson then recalled Lynton Crosby, his campaign guru, who will perhaps give him better advice on how a prime minister should behave.

Biting commentator Sarah Vine has meanwhile dared to write in the Daily Mail what everyone in the Conservative Party thinks, namely that Boris Johnson’s main problem is his wife Carrie. It is she who conditions his choices and gives him the wrong advice. Ѐ she who wanted to spend a lot of money on Downing Street upholstery making her husband difficult because she had to borrow that money in exchange for political favors; she is the one who loves Caribbean vacations paid for by no one knows who; it was she who convinced her husband to organize a special flight to rescue cats and dogs from Afghanistan, leaving people on the ground; she is the one who led him to torpedo Dominic Cummings, the councilor who is now taking revenge by revealing everything he has seen and heard. Ѐ she organized at least two of the parties under investigation, one for her husband’s birthday, the other just to celebrate with friends (and Johnson, according to a witness), the resignation of Cummings who had just left Number 10 with his belongings in a cardboard box. According to Sarah Vine, Johnson will have to choose between family tranquility and political activity. With Carrie in charge, they don’t seem like two things that can be reconciled.