He has purged his employees, officials are paying the fines and his party is angering its critics
British Prime Minister. Boris Johnson evades the opposition’s attempt to overthrow him following the release of public servant Sue Gray’s long-awaited report on illegal gatherings and parties in Downing Street during the pandemic. Gray’s is the penultimate investigation into what happened. Police have completed theirs and a parliamentary committee has launched the final investigation.
The official’s final report analyzes eight illegal events, in which government employees gathered in Downing Street spaces to drink alcohol and fraternize. Work meetings were allowed under the rules imposed by the government, but no farewell or birthday parties. And the official blames the leaders for what happened.
Gray states: “Government leaders attended the events I investigated. Many of these events should not have been allowed, but lower officials felt that participation in these events was allowed due to the presence of top leaders. Leaders at the center, both political and administrative, must take responsibility for that culture.”
It describes a landscape where Downing Street was an island in a country that feared lockdown orders. The consumption of alcoholic beverages increased significantly during the pandemic, but the population bought them in shops and supermarkets to drink them at home. The staff and leaders at the top of the government took them to the office.
Bins full of bottles and leftovers from the previous day’s party. Farewell photos published by Gray show Johnson toasting, drinking; there are bottles of alcohol on a table. The official notes in her report that Customs in Downing Street has changed following the unveiling of the ‘party gate’.
Assistants to Johnson and Gray have these days publicly disputed who called who after it was revealed they had met last week, but the Prime Minister thanked him for his report, in the opening words of his statement to the House of Commons. He then held on to his acknowledgment that things have changed. Key assistants to the prime minister have been fired.
The police handed out 126 fines – 53 to 35 men, 73 to 48 women – but the prime minister, who was present at so many parties according to photos and testimonies, was given only one, worth about 60 euros, for attending a short party organized by his wife to celebrate her birthday. According to some media, Johnson’s good lawyers would have completed the police questionnaires better than the young officers.
He developed the argument for the House of Commons that would have saved him. They worked extremely long, under pressure to get the pandemic policy right. He attended those meetings to show his appreciation for that effort. His presence was short-lived and he had no idea what happened after his departure, including drunkenness, vomiting and arguments. He always told the truth to parliament and the public when he denied that the rules had been broken.
“Let’s turn the page,” Johnson asked. He invoked the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine to end the party gate. “This farce is a result of not telling the truth in the beginning,” Labor Keir Starmer blamed him. Also, they have “set the standards of behavior at the level of a snake’s gut.” Starmer has promised to resign if he is fined for a controversial meeting he had with colleagues over a beer.
Conservative Tobias Ellwood, one of a group of “Tory” MPs from a military background who politely loathes Johnson for a variety of reasons, exclaimed, “I’ve been booed by my own parliamentary group!” when he asked his MPs if they were willing. to defend in public the conduct of the Prime Minister. Liberal Democrat Ed Davey told Johnson, “He doesn’t really regret it, he just regrets being discovered.”
The British leader may not have the best personal reputation, but skill and fortune help him time and time again to prevent his downfall. This time, the Holy Ghost descends to rescue him from the protracted debate over Gray’s report. The House of Representatives will close tomorrow due to the Whitsun recess. And on Monday, June 6, after the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee, it will reopen.
Source: La Verdad
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