> the reason why junior Downing Street staff got fined, while senior figures didn’t is that the senior people failed to answer the questionnaire.
The Met’s inquiry was so comprehensive that if you didn’t answer their questionnaire they would let you off. I suppose that’s “unbelievably comprehensive”, in a sense.
An independent enquiry into why both the Gray enquiry and the Police investigation covered up criminality in No 10 would be more useful.
Lets face it the strategy worked. They controlled the investigation all the way through and delayed it so long most of the public lost interest. The initial person commissioned to investigate it, Simon Case, was actually at one of the parties with the PM & Chancellor and only when it became apparent he wasn’t going to be acceptable due to leaks of his involvement they handed it to his deputy Sue Gray someone who has been described by Gordon Brown as a manager of “crises” and by journalist Chris Cook as a “steely enforcer of Whitehall authority” who “owes her allegiance to the permanent government and the deep state”. If his involvement hadn’t been made public we can reasonably assume Simon Case would not have publicly chastised himself in the report and thus would have also likely selectively edited out the involvement of others as required so I see no reason to assume his loyal deputy did any better. It’s all so easy to speculate that the thinking was that the report needed to give just enough “red meat” to be damaging to satisfy “the mob” but not fatal. In fact we even know that this was the idea due to the leak of “Operation Save Big Dog” a leaked plan to pin the blame on the unimportant people in no.10 who took part while saving the key players. I’d bet anyone who did resign got quickly shuffled into a new job working for a company owned by a Tory donor and will be back in Conservative politics in a year or two.
As for the police investigation I think it’s hard to say with any confidence that the initial lack of interest was not due to political involvement and then when it became impossible to avoid it was used to justify delaying the Sue Gray report for three and a half months which gave the PM’s team time to crisis manage the entire affair. There have been fairly strong allegations that staff were told to “clean up” their phones by removing information and certainly when comparing what has been credibly reported about these events to the fines that were given out by the police as a result of the investigation it’s hard not to assume that the extent of their investigation was managed or limited in scope. Certainly we know that Home Secretary Priti Patel (who owes her own political survival to Johnson after the bullying report) has shown a willingness to interfere in police investigations in her past and that appointments in the Met have become highly political. Johnson’s MO is to appoint people who are loyal to him personally (the old corrupt Patron idea) and the new Acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Stephen House does not inspire much confidence given he’s basically an ideological successor to Cressida Dick (she actually brought him out of retirement to support her in the met) who says he wanted to be part of “a sort of secret, closed-off society” as a motivation for joining the Police.
It really is quite grim stuff imo and it certainly appears that they have succeeded in dodging the worst of the consequences. As with the rallying call of the 2019 General Election to “Get Brexit done” they’ve learned the average Briton has no conviction beyond the end of their initial frivolous interest in a scandal so anyone promising to just get something out the way will generally get their compliance. Reinforce that with months of friendly media coverage telling their base what to think and it’s allowed them to get away with one of the worst political scandals that I’ve seen relatively scot-free. The only possible comeback is if voters see through it all and desert them at by-elections but I don’t have that much confidence it will happen. Perhaps there will be a movement to the Lib Dems for a while but a year and a half gives them a long time for people to forget all about this (Proroguing Parliament? Russia report? “Let the bodies pile high”?… honestly even I have trouble keeping track of it all) and for some finger pointing to be done elsewhere. Plenty of gullible fools believe that Starmer’s campaign team having a curry during by-election campaigning is equivalent to the Tories endemic breaking of the rules during the worst of the pandemic and that Johnson was largely unaware and on the periphery of these events despite them being in his own residence. I’ve even seen him painted as a victim by some claiming he was unduly influenced by Carrie Johnson (Conservatives do love to blame the actions of men in power on their wives – see Harry and Megan).
Just give him a £10,000 fine, took police barely 10 minutes to do that for normal people having a quiet get together.
Make things look balanced and fair? no?
well, good luck after being tossed out after the revolution.
So it’ll start by the end of the week then?
When do citizens get to *rule out investigations* against themselves… or is this a right priviledge only for the wealthy bastards holding the country hostage? Asking for a friend.
Of course he would. He knows Boris has lied to the public and the Parliament.
12 comments
Move along, nothing to concern anybody at all, here at all. Keep moving.
Go home, draw your curtains and await further official …. denials.
Ruling out investigations into themselves. So unbelievably corrupt.
New inquiry? AFAIK the parties inside the flat weren’t looked at by either the police or Sue Grey in the first place.
And just what makes this minister think it’s up to him?
The Tory minister’s claim that Gray and Met delivered “unbelievably comprehensive” investigations looks like suspiciously like a flat out lie.
There’s no mention of the illegal birthday party in Gray’s report, the Met have not covered it.
[ITV were reporting on it](https://www.itv.com/news/2022-01-24/boris-johnson-had-birthday-bash-during-lockdown-itv-news-understands) four months ago.
Ex Johnson advisor Cummings, also [aware of the June 19th gathering](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/23/sue-gray-report-partygate-boris-johnson-downing-street-uk-politics-latest?page=with:block-628b600f8f0810d5e014cfcb#block-628b600f8f0810d5e014cfcb), was [not contacted by the Met](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/27/met-never-asked-me-for-lockdown-party-evidence-dominic-cummings).
One Met source told journalist [George Monbiot](https://nitter.net/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1529403011243593733):
> the reason why junior Downing Street staff got fined, while senior figures didn’t is that the senior people failed to answer the questionnaire.
The Met’s inquiry was so comprehensive that if you didn’t answer their questionnaire they would let you off. I suppose that’s “unbelievably comprehensive”, in a sense.
An independent enquiry into why both the Gray enquiry and the Police investigation covered up criminality in No 10 would be more useful.
Lets face it the strategy worked. They controlled the investigation all the way through and delayed it so long most of the public lost interest. The initial person commissioned to investigate it, Simon Case, was actually at one of the parties with the PM & Chancellor and only when it became apparent he wasn’t going to be acceptable due to leaks of his involvement they handed it to his deputy Sue Gray someone who has been described by Gordon Brown as a manager of “crises” and by journalist Chris Cook as a “steely enforcer of Whitehall authority” who “owes her allegiance to the permanent government and the deep state”. If his involvement hadn’t been made public we can reasonably assume Simon Case would not have publicly chastised himself in the report and thus would have also likely selectively edited out the involvement of others as required so I see no reason to assume his loyal deputy did any better. It’s all so easy to speculate that the thinking was that the report needed to give just enough “red meat” to be damaging to satisfy “the mob” but not fatal. In fact we even know that this was the idea due to the leak of “Operation Save Big Dog” a leaked plan to pin the blame on the unimportant people in no.10 who took part while saving the key players. I’d bet anyone who did resign got quickly shuffled into a new job working for a company owned by a Tory donor and will be back in Conservative politics in a year or two.
As for the police investigation I think it’s hard to say with any confidence that the initial lack of interest was not due to political involvement and then when it became impossible to avoid it was used to justify delaying the Sue Gray report for three and a half months which gave the PM’s team time to crisis manage the entire affair. There have been fairly strong allegations that staff were told to “clean up” their phones by removing information and certainly when comparing what has been credibly reported about these events to the fines that were given out by the police as a result of the investigation it’s hard not to assume that the extent of their investigation was managed or limited in scope. Certainly we know that Home Secretary Priti Patel (who owes her own political survival to Johnson after the bullying report) has shown a willingness to interfere in police investigations in her past and that appointments in the Met have become highly political. Johnson’s MO is to appoint people who are loyal to him personally (the old corrupt Patron idea) and the new Acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Stephen House does not inspire much confidence given he’s basically an ideological successor to Cressida Dick (she actually brought him out of retirement to support her in the met) who says he wanted to be part of “a sort of secret, closed-off society” as a motivation for joining the Police.
It really is quite grim stuff imo and it certainly appears that they have succeeded in dodging the worst of the consequences. As with the rallying call of the 2019 General Election to “Get Brexit done” they’ve learned the average Briton has no conviction beyond the end of their initial frivolous interest in a scandal so anyone promising to just get something out the way will generally get their compliance. Reinforce that with months of friendly media coverage telling their base what to think and it’s allowed them to get away with one of the worst political scandals that I’ve seen relatively scot-free. The only possible comeback is if voters see through it all and desert them at by-elections but I don’t have that much confidence it will happen. Perhaps there will be a movement to the Lib Dems for a while but a year and a half gives them a long time for people to forget all about this (Proroguing Parliament? Russia report? “Let the bodies pile high”?… honestly even I have trouble keeping track of it all) and for some finger pointing to be done elsewhere. Plenty of gullible fools believe that Starmer’s campaign team having a curry during by-election campaigning is equivalent to the Tories endemic breaking of the rules during the worst of the pandemic and that Johnson was largely unaware and on the periphery of these events despite them being in his own residence. I’ve even seen him painted as a victim by some claiming he was unduly influenced by Carrie Johnson (Conservatives do love to blame the actions of men in power on their wives – see Harry and Megan).
Just give him a £10,000 fine, took police barely 10 minutes to do that for normal people having a quiet get together.
Make things look balanced and fair? no?
well, good luck after being tossed out after the revolution.
So it’ll start by the end of the week then?
When do citizens get to *rule out investigations* against themselves… or is this a right priviledge only for the wealthy bastards holding the country hostage? Asking for a friend.
Of course he would. He knows Boris has lied to the public and the Parliament.
Nothing to hide nothing to fear?