Boris Johnson, in a helicopter during a visit to the armed forces. /
Conspiracy or botched? Ask those disappointed by a police intervention that freezes Gray’s report
The London Metropolitan Police have frozen the release of a report into allegedly illegal gatherings during the pandemic in Downing Street. The police force has asked the document to make “minimal references” to the events it investigates, to “avoid any prejudice” in its investigations. The possible consequence of the intervention of the ‘Met’ is that the report is not published as planned.
Boris Johnson, who seems to benefit from what is happening in recent hours, commissioned Sue Gray, deputy director general of the Cabinet Ministry, in December to investigate possible illegal meetings and parties in Downing Street and other government departments, reported in the British media.
The terms of the report required of Gray, who has a reputation for firmness and is responsible in his ministry for the British Union and for constitutional affairs, give him the power to describe the events that occurred and analyze whether the law or the Government’s guidelines on the pandemic. It could also ponder whether the Prime Minister has broken the code of ethics for Cabinet members.
In the unusual circumstances that British politics is experiencing, due to the fact that the Prime Minister was present at some of the meetings investigated and that he escapes with apparent lies from the accusations of having broken the laws of his Government, the publication of the report it had acquired the status of revealed truth, capable of provoking a conservative rebellion against Johnson.
On Tuesday, when Cressida Dick, head of the ‘Met’, announced the opening of an investigation into those same events, the press said that the publication of Gray’s report was imminent and Johnson was not going to like it, that it was going to be gray , which contains very compromising photos, which would be a cold description of what is already known, that a few unidentified officials would be sanctioned,…
The intervention of the London Police came after it denied requests to investigate clearly criminal acts, the same as those committed by citizens who have been fined, or taken to the courts of Justice. The ‘Met’ alleged “absence of evidence” of crimes and that it has “a policy of not retrospectively investigating bankruptcies” of the pandemic regulations.
Grotesque
Scotland Yard police guard the Downing Street gate and would have seen the organizers of the farewell to a journalist, last October, leave with empty suitcases and return with them full (of alcoholic beverages). They are also displayed inside number 10, where the prime minister resides. The “absence of evidence” suggested that Inspector Clouseau, hero of ‘The Pink Panther’, has infiltrated the ‘Met’.
Two lawyers hired to give their opinion to the Good Law Project, which wanted to denounce the inaction of the Police in court, considered that it acted illegally without seeking evidence in the face of such evidence of crime and, also, that it broke the law by claim that it applied a policy on retrospectiveness that it had not published.
Scotland Yard stated, however, in its denials that it would launch an investigation “if there is evidence from the Cabinet Office or from another source.” Officer Gray has shared information discovered by her team about the meetings with police officers and in some cases reaches the threshold of suspicion of committing a crime. And that’s why Dick would have announced the investigation.
Shortly thereafter, spokesmen for Johnson stated that the release of Gray’s report was being deferred until the police investigation was complete. Then it was said that the ‘Met’ had no problem publishing it. In some corridor of the adjoining Government and Police buildings there had been a short circuit, because Scotland Yard did care about the publication.
In his statement this Friday, he states that he wants only minimal data to be published on the cases he investigates. If Gray published his full report, an interviewee would know what other witnesses have said. The Scotland Yard investigation would be corrupted. But the consequence is political: who now wants to read the more anodyne results of Gray’s research?
Postponing indefinitely the grotesque vicissitudes of Prime Minister Johnson, the so-called ‘partygate’ seems to deflate for weeks or months. Immediately the media and networks wondered if this sudden disappointment of the supporters to bring down Johnson is the result of a conspiracy or a fudge.
