I don’t understand the logic behind how the Met Police is conducting its probe into unlawful parties at Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.
My confusion reached brain-aching proportions after my ITV colleague Anushka Asthana disclosed on Friday that officials had received fixed penalty notices – fines – for attending perhaps the most famous of all the Downing Street events, the Bring Your Own Booze garden party on 20 May 2020, revealed by an email leaked to ITV News.
The point is that I know of at least two relatively junior officials who have been informed by the police that they’ve been fined. So there is no longer any doubt this was a law-breaking party.
And it was a party that the PM has admitted he attended and has talked about at some length, in the House of Commons no less.
On 12 January 2022, he told MPs he was there for 25 minutes and – although at the time he thought it was a ‘work event’ and was therefore allowed – he latterly realised that ‘with hindsight I should have sent everyone back inside’.
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