Thanks to the intervention of the Met Police, her report on the “alleged gatherings on government premises during Covid restrictions” was ‘limited’, to say the least (the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg describes it as a “terse summary”).
Despite this, the report was still utterly damning of government leadership (and who leads the government?) – a fact that hardly came as a surprise to anyone who’s been following the reported events. Sadly, because of the Metropolitan Police’s intervention, Gray’s report lacks all the crucial details, including (and I quote from the report): emails; Whatsapp messages; text messages; photographs; and building entry and exit logs. Gray lists 16 ‘gatherings’ and goes on to point out that all but 4 of these are currently being investigated by the Met.
Again quoting from the BBC’s political editor (and, frankly, I could have used any number of quotes from other journalists), “it is there now in black and white for all to see - there was rule breaking at the top of government when the country was living through lockdown. The prime minister's original claim that all the guidelines were followed seems almost farcical now”.
In the past, matters of honesty, integrity, trust and responsibility would have been regarded as essential qualities of any prime minister. Given what we already knew, Mr Johnson should have resigned weeks ago. Given the contents of Ms Gray’s much-edited report, he should have resigned yesterday… but, of course, he didn’t.
Many Tory MPs have been hugely critical of the prime minister and have made it clear that he no longer receives their support; many others continue to support Mr Johnson through (blind?) loyalty. Others tell us that they’re going to await outcome of the Met Police’s investigations.
When will that be? A fortnight? A month?
Well, yesterday, the Met Police told us that their investigation “would not take more than a year”.
What an utter, utter farce.
In political
terms, the key questions are simply: “Did the prime minister mislead
parliament?” and “Did the prime minister break the Covid rules?”. If the answer
to either of these is “yes”, then Mr Johnson has to resign. In the ridiculous
circumstances that we find ourselves in, surely it’s not asking too much for
the Met to begin their investigations (from various comments made yesterday, it
seems that they have yet to make a start!) by pursuing the specific allegations
relating to the ‘gatherings’ that the prime minister apparently attended?
Surely, even by the Met’s own ‘speed of operation’ (apologies for irony), it
wouldn’t take more than a few days to establish the facts (afterall, Ms Gray
has done much of the groundwork)
But, hey, what do I know! I’m just a
boring old fogey who despairs of what we’ve become.
It shouldn’t be like this.
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