All detail stripped from Sue Gray's report, but it is still clear in its condemnation:
- Behaviour is "difficult to justify"
- "failures of leadership"
- "Some of the events should not have been allowed"
- "The excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate"
"There was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public. There were failures of leadership and judgment."
The full list of events Sue Gray investigated...
All of those events have reached the threshold for criminal investigation by police, save for these dates:
• 15 May 2020
• 27 November 2020
• 10 December 2020
• 15 December 2020
Yes, Gray's report lacks detail. But it is damning in its overall conclusion that many of these events should not have taken place and amounted to a failure of leadership.
The fact almost all are being investigated police is doubly damning.
Sue Gray concludes that there must be change.
"There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across Government. This does not need to wait for the police
investigations to be concluded."
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BREAKING: Senior backbencher and committee chair Will Wragg accuses whips, No 10 and spads of blackmail.
MPs have faced "pressure & intimidation" for calling for PM to go.
Including cutting investment from constituencies and releasing embarrassing stories.
Serious accusation.
Will Wragg's Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee oversees the work of the cabinet office, including No 10.
This is a serious accusation that the ministerial code has been breached. Understand Wragg is also concerned the law may have been broken.
Given quite a few of the rebellious MPs are 2019 intake from the red wall, threatening to withdraw funding from their constituencies - if true - doesn't do much for the government's levelling up agenda either.
🚨 Senior Conservative backbencher tells me tonight they are confident of getting to 54 letters tomorrow to try and oust the PM.
“Up the revolution!” they tell me.
No 10 / whips subjecting them to “threats and blackmail” but has only angered MPs further, they say.
“And colleagues are being thrown under the bus” for rebelling they say. “It’s disgusting.”
Parliament hasn’t felt this mutinous since the final days of Theresa May… whose downfall Boris Johnson played a rather large part in.
Important disclaimer: the process of sending in letters is of course secretive. We’ve been here plenty of times before where rebels think they have the numbers, but MPs haven’t actually sent the letters they claim to have sent.
BREAKING: The Metropolitan Police will NOT investigate any of the Downing Street parties unless and until the Sue Gray inquiry finds evidence of criminality.
ie the Met are relying on an internal inquiry to decide for them whether a crime was committed.
Full statement 👇
The many thousands of people fined for breaching Covid rules may wish they could only have asked a close colleague to investigate them before needing to involve the police.
The Metropolitan Police are already being taken to court by @GoodLawProject who argue that the police’s decision not to investigate any of the parties is unlawful. A judicial review has been launched. It will be fascinating to see what the judge concludes.
EXCL: Email obtained by @itvnews proves over 100 staff were invited to drinks party in No 10 garden at height of lockdown to “make the most of the lovely weather”.
We’re told PM and his wife attended, with staff invited to “bring your own booze!”
NEW: Downing Street staff and Boris Johnson pictured drinking wine in the No 10 garden last May when the rest of the country was limited to meeting just one other person socially outdoors.
This adds to the list of parties Sue Gray may need to investigate, as she takes over the internal inquiry into partygate. It's quite a lot to get through before Christmas... could her investigation take until the new year?
Another interesting thing about this photo is it pictures the infamous 'wine and cheese', which Downing Street staff joked about in the video we aired last week in relation to the xmas party. Adds further credence to our video - a clue that wine and cheese was a party favourite?