A Whitehall report into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street is so damning that senior officials believe it could leave Boris Johnson with no choice but to resign as prime minister, *The Times* has been told.
The report by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, is understood to be highly critical of Johnson both for attending some of the events and the culture in No 10 under his leadership.
The report has been put on hold until Scotland Yard has completed its own investigations, but a senior official familiar with its contents said the findings are “damning” for Johnson.
“[Sue’s report](https://archive.ph/SmP1K) is excoriating. It will make things incredibly difficult for the prime minister,” the official said. “There’s an immense amount of pressure on her — her report could be enough to end him. No official has ever been in a position like this before.”
Johnson attended at least six of the 12 events in Downing Street that are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police. He has already been fined for one, a celebration for his 56th birthday held in the Cabinet Room.
Police have started issuing fines for a second event attended by Johnson, a “[bring your own booze](https://archive.ph/iONil)” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020. The event was organised by his principal private secretary at the time. Johnson went with his then-fiancée, Carrie Symonds, and more than 50 Downing Street staff. The prime minister has said he believed it was a work event and had attended only briefly. No 10 said that he had yet to be issued with a fine.
Gray’s interim report offered tacit criticism of Johnson, referring to “failures of leadership and judgment” by those in No 10 and the Cabinet Office. The full report is said to be more directly critical of the prime minister.
Johnson has insisted he will not quit and has suggested that the issue does not matter to voters. Oliver Dowden, chairman of the Conservative Party, said that Johnson had “plenty more fuel in the tank” and that there was a “strong case” for him staying in No 10. The prime minister will make a series of visits this week as part of the Conservative Party’s local election campaign. Some Tory MPs believe that [he will face a confidence vote](https://archive.ph/zvWVS) shortly after the elections on May 5 if bad results are followed by police issuing more fines.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said that he would keep pressing for the prime minister to resign over the parties, adding that even Tory MPs were “sick of defending the indefensible”.
He said that Labour could not simply “pass over” the fact that Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, had been issued with fixed-penalty notices for breaking the law. “They have been found to have broken the law — the criminal law at that,” he said. “No other prime minister in the history of our country has ever been found to have broken the law in office before. And I don’t think we can just pass over it.”
[Jacob Rees-Mogg](https://archive.ph/GLNf2), the Brexit opportunities minister, described the prime minister as a “great man” and insisted that the public still supported him. “I don’t think people are losing faith in him, the socialists don’t like him, of course they don’t, that’s their job,” he told GB News.
*Steven Swinford, Political Editor*
Sunday April 24 2022, 10.30pm, The Times
I suspect pre-leaking the views of a senior civil servant about the report is part of a strategy to warm the public up for Conservative efforts to brand the Sue Grey report a “civil service stitch up” / “hatchet job” / “assassination attempt” in an effort to discredit it.
I don’t believe that any senior civil servant would actually say all of this to a journalist, even anonymously. Publicly giving a view on whether or not the Prime Minister should keep their job is the least neutral thing one can do.
Boris wouldn’t quit if he got caught doing lines of coke in the commons with mogg. The man is like Teflon
Honestly sick of hearing about this – but it’s important we don’t blame the people talking about it.
Fuck you boris Johnson for not resigning and forcing my Reddit feed to be filled with these articles still.
The problem for Boris is that after resigning in disgrace his world is empty.
He can’t go back to making political stuff up for the telegraph, he won’t be a respected elder statesman, untouchable as a comedy turn on have I got news for you. There’s nothing.
I’ve heard “Boris has no choice to resign” near enough every week since autumn 2020
Doubt Boris is ever going to quit. And we’re just going to end up with another awful Tory anyway.
One of the worst prime ministers of the past quarter of a century if not thr worst
Doesn’t this imply that Boris has morals? He isn’t going to quit over anything. He needs to be ousted
How about you publish it and let us make up our own minds if you are worried about the contents?
He wont though. He knows he can get away with it because the Tories have no credible opposition.
Funny thing is we would have seen this months ago, and the fallout all sorted by now if the opposition had played their cards right.
Instead of just saying ‘we have a report coming and will refer it to the police afterwards no matter what it says’ they raised the stakes by going calling for it to go to the police before it was out. All this did was stop it being released while it was investigated and people got bored of it. If it was as damning as they expect then he would have probably gone by now so all they have done is kept him in position for longer.
Anything that ‘could make things difficult’ for the PM, or might ‘force him to resign’, I don’t think carry much weight for him.
Any ‘force to resign’ would be evidence of the PM caring about public perceptions and conscience, but he has pretty consistently shown that this sort of thing doesn’t bother him in the slightest, and If he hasn’t resigned by now, he’s not going to.
He’ll stay until he’s pushed out of office. A vote of no confidence seems unlikely at this point – not enough of his own side are willing to risk going against him.
Maybe at the next GE, but Labour don’t seem to have anything that has captured the country’s interest – maybe we’d have to wait until after the conferences later in the year.
And apropo nothing – *where* are the Liberals? They just aren’t on anyone’s scope right now.
tbh I didn’t even realise this report was still coming.
Seriously mistrust the MET right now, didn’t want to investigate it to begin with, now endless hold-ups preventing its release. Definitely a cover up of something.
Eh of.. of.. of… Of course.. (trying not to laugh). We respect the.. the.. report and just look at the.. eh.. eh.. vaccine roll out and how great… I … I .. I mean the people are great.. we we we.. are the really great. lol.
– Boris Johnson. /(ROFL)(ROFL)
The Tories just need wiping out at the local elections. Vote.
I mean that doesn’t mean he will actually quit though. He’s shown time and time again a total disregard for any kind of decency.
So many times this sub thinks BJ will resign, it never happens lol.
I kind of feel that post 2010 and the leadup to Brexit (as well as post Brexit) kind of brought out the worst in the Tory’s and Labor simultaneously. Between the mid 90s and late 2000s I’d argue that the UK benefited for both party’s modernizing and moderating on several of their positions. New Labor under Blair/Brown modernized the party on trade and economic policy while maintain it’s Social Democratic roots, which forced the Conservatives to become more modern on social policy to challenge Labor.
Though what we’ve really seen post 2015 is that the Conservatives embraced a lot of their worst impulses post Brexit, while Labor briefly did the same under Corbyn, though corrected significantly under Starmer (though not completely). The result has largely been that UK politics throughout the last decade have become extremely dysfunctional while no government has been able to recapture the socio-economic gains of the 2000s.
Well, that explains the constant pushing back of it. Amazing how, even with all intervention possible to prevent or minimise the impact of this report, people are still sticking with wanting answers.
Hats off to Sue Gray also. Initially I wasn’t sure how thorough this investigation would be but if the headlines are true then she did a good job at the very least.
Boris is defiantly gone, no doubt about it. Conservative MPs are now “refusing to reveal” whether or not they have put a letter in. If they were supporting the PM they would be telling everyone they hadn’t.
And yet…
This is just a fucking joke at this point.
Well I should damn well hope so. We now have a convicted criminal as a prime minister, even though his ‘punishment’ was absolutely nothing.
“…and then Mr Johnson decapitated the toddler and shat down its neck hole.”
Mr Johnson still refuses to step down.
Jesus Christ enough of this “he has to resign” shit.
He’s made it quite clear that no amount of shame will cause him to resign, why does anyone think that’s ever going to change?
Ill believe this once I see it happening this criminal and his goons need to leave asap
No, the Sue Gray report left out the worst details pending police investigation. Which was bullshit, as was the report, as is this article.
He won’t leave until he’s told directly to GTFO and has his keys to no10 taken off him.
He should have gone *months* ago for lying to Parliament. The debates and PMQs last week in the Commons just re-emphasised that fact – no further Committee investigations or waiting on the Gray Report changes that in the slightest.
He is not fit to be UK Prime Minister. If he had any honour (“Aye, there’s the rub”) he would have resigned instead of waiting to be ousted. Tory MPs are culpable here too – they are beginning to look as equally as bad.
He should call a general election if he thinks he’s so ducking great, prove to the public that he’s the man for the job by getting re-elected. It’d put this to rest.
The fact that he’s hopefully lose is a happy coincidence.
It’s almost a joke/sarcasm quote at this point. Doing something so terrible you should be fired but nothing happens.
Time to stop teasing and let us see the damn report.
33 comments
A Whitehall report into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street is so damning that senior officials believe it could leave Boris Johnson with no choice but to resign as prime minister, *The Times* has been told.
The report by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, is understood to be highly critical of Johnson both for attending some of the events and the culture in No 10 under his leadership.
The report has been put on hold until Scotland Yard has completed its own investigations, but a senior official familiar with its contents said the findings are “damning” for Johnson.
“[Sue’s report](https://archive.ph/SmP1K) is excoriating. It will make things incredibly difficult for the prime minister,” the official said. “There’s an immense amount of pressure on her — her report could be enough to end him. No official has ever been in a position like this before.”
Johnson attended at least six of the 12 events in Downing Street that are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police. He has already been fined for one, a celebration for his 56th birthday held in the Cabinet Room.
Police have started issuing fines for a second event attended by Johnson, a “[bring your own booze](https://archive.ph/iONil)” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020. The event was organised by his principal private secretary at the time. Johnson went with his then-fiancée, Carrie Symonds, and more than 50 Downing Street staff. The prime minister has said he believed it was a work event and had attended only briefly. No 10 said that he had yet to be issued with a fine.
Gray’s interim report offered tacit criticism of Johnson, referring to “failures of leadership and judgment” by those in No 10 and the Cabinet Office. The full report is said to be more directly critical of the prime minister.
Johnson has insisted he will not quit and has suggested that the issue does not matter to voters. Oliver Dowden, chairman of the Conservative Party, said that Johnson had “plenty more fuel in the tank” and that there was a “strong case” for him staying in No 10. The prime minister will make a series of visits this week as part of the Conservative Party’s local election campaign. Some Tory MPs believe that [he will face a confidence vote](https://archive.ph/zvWVS) shortly after the elections on May 5 if bad results are followed by police issuing more fines.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said that he would keep pressing for the prime minister to resign over the parties, adding that even Tory MPs were “sick of defending the indefensible”.
He said that Labour could not simply “pass over” the fact that Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, had been issued with fixed-penalty notices for breaking the law. “They have been found to have broken the law — the criminal law at that,” he said. “No other prime minister in the history of our country has ever been found to have broken the law in office before. And I don’t think we can just pass over it.”
[Jacob Rees-Mogg](https://archive.ph/GLNf2), the Brexit opportunities minister, described the prime minister as a “great man” and insisted that the public still supported him. “I don’t think people are losing faith in him, the socialists don’t like him, of course they don’t, that’s their job,” he told GB News.
*Steven Swinford, Political Editor*
Sunday April 24 2022, 10.30pm, The Times
I suspect pre-leaking the views of a senior civil servant about the report is part of a strategy to warm the public up for Conservative efforts to brand the Sue Grey report a “civil service stitch up” / “hatchet job” / “assassination attempt” in an effort to discredit it.
I don’t believe that any senior civil servant would actually say all of this to a journalist, even anonymously. Publicly giving a view on whether or not the Prime Minister should keep their job is the least neutral thing one can do.
Boris wouldn’t quit if he got caught doing lines of coke in the commons with mogg. The man is like Teflon
Honestly sick of hearing about this – but it’s important we don’t blame the people talking about it.
Fuck you boris Johnson for not resigning and forcing my Reddit feed to be filled with these articles still.
The problem for Boris is that after resigning in disgrace his world is empty.
He can’t go back to making political stuff up for the telegraph, he won’t be a respected elder statesman, untouchable as a comedy turn on have I got news for you. There’s nothing.
I’ve heard “Boris has no choice to resign” near enough every week since autumn 2020
Doubt Boris is ever going to quit. And we’re just going to end up with another awful Tory anyway.
One of the worst prime ministers of the past quarter of a century if not thr worst
Doesn’t this imply that Boris has morals? He isn’t going to quit over anything. He needs to be ousted
How about you publish it and let us make up our own minds if you are worried about the contents?
He wont though. He knows he can get away with it because the Tories have no credible opposition.
Funny thing is we would have seen this months ago, and the fallout all sorted by now if the opposition had played their cards right.
Instead of just saying ‘we have a report coming and will refer it to the police afterwards no matter what it says’ they raised the stakes by going calling for it to go to the police before it was out. All this did was stop it being released while it was investigated and people got bored of it. If it was as damning as they expect then he would have probably gone by now so all they have done is kept him in position for longer.
Anything that ‘could make things difficult’ for the PM, or might ‘force him to resign’, I don’t think carry much weight for him.
Any ‘force to resign’ would be evidence of the PM caring about public perceptions and conscience, but he has pretty consistently shown that this sort of thing doesn’t bother him in the slightest, and If he hasn’t resigned by now, he’s not going to.
He’ll stay until he’s pushed out of office. A vote of no confidence seems unlikely at this point – not enough of his own side are willing to risk going against him.
Maybe at the next GE, but Labour don’t seem to have anything that has captured the country’s interest – maybe we’d have to wait until after the conferences later in the year.
And apropo nothing – *where* are the Liberals? They just aren’t on anyone’s scope right now.
tbh I didn’t even realise this report was still coming.
Seriously mistrust the MET right now, didn’t want to investigate it to begin with, now endless hold-ups preventing its release. Definitely a cover up of something.
Eh of.. of.. of… Of course.. (trying not to laugh). We respect the.. the.. report and just look at the.. eh.. eh.. vaccine roll out and how great… I … I .. I mean the people are great.. we we we.. are the really great. lol.
– Boris Johnson. /(ROFL)(ROFL)
The Tories just need wiping out at the local elections. Vote.
I mean that doesn’t mean he will actually quit though. He’s shown time and time again a total disregard for any kind of decency.
So many times this sub thinks BJ will resign, it never happens lol.
I kind of feel that post 2010 and the leadup to Brexit (as well as post Brexit) kind of brought out the worst in the Tory’s and Labor simultaneously. Between the mid 90s and late 2000s I’d argue that the UK benefited for both party’s modernizing and moderating on several of their positions. New Labor under Blair/Brown modernized the party on trade and economic policy while maintain it’s Social Democratic roots, which forced the Conservatives to become more modern on social policy to challenge Labor.
Though what we’ve really seen post 2015 is that the Conservatives embraced a lot of their worst impulses post Brexit, while Labor briefly did the same under Corbyn, though corrected significantly under Starmer (though not completely). The result has largely been that UK politics throughout the last decade have become extremely dysfunctional while no government has been able to recapture the socio-economic gains of the 2000s.
Well, that explains the constant pushing back of it. Amazing how, even with all intervention possible to prevent or minimise the impact of this report, people are still sticking with wanting answers.
Hats off to Sue Gray also. Initially I wasn’t sure how thorough this investigation would be but if the headlines are true then she did a good job at the very least.
Boris is defiantly gone, no doubt about it. Conservative MPs are now “refusing to reveal” whether or not they have put a letter in. If they were supporting the PM they would be telling everyone they hadn’t.
And yet…
This is just a fucking joke at this point.
Well I should damn well hope so. We now have a convicted criminal as a prime minister, even though his ‘punishment’ was absolutely nothing.
“…and then Mr Johnson decapitated the toddler and shat down its neck hole.”
Mr Johnson still refuses to step down.
Jesus Christ enough of this “he has to resign” shit.
He’s made it quite clear that no amount of shame will cause him to resign, why does anyone think that’s ever going to change?
Ill believe this once I see it happening this criminal and his goons need to leave asap
No, the Sue Gray report left out the worst details pending police investigation. Which was bullshit, as was the report, as is this article.
He won’t leave until he’s told directly to GTFO and has his keys to no10 taken off him.
He should have gone *months* ago for lying to Parliament. The debates and PMQs last week in the Commons just re-emphasised that fact – no further Committee investigations or waiting on the Gray Report changes that in the slightest.
He is not fit to be UK Prime Minister. If he had any honour (“Aye, there’s the rub”) he would have resigned instead of waiting to be ousted. Tory MPs are culpable here too – they are beginning to look as equally as bad.
He should call a general election if he thinks he’s so ducking great, prove to the public that he’s the man for the job by getting re-elected. It’d put this to rest.
The fact that he’s hopefully lose is a happy coincidence.
It’s almost a joke/sarcasm quote at this point. Doing something so terrible you should be fired but nothing happens.
Time to stop teasing and let us see the damn report.