Sue gray

Monday

Katy Balls

Johnson faces a mauling from his own MPs

Ahead of the publication of Sue Gray’s report into partygate, there had been talk that the police investigation — which meant the most tricky parts of Gray’s investigation were left out — would help Boris Johnson by ensuring he got off lightly. However, anyone watching the reaction from MPs to the Prime Minister’s statement in the chamber will have been left wondering what the full report would have triggered. While the shortened report meant the Prime Minister was spared embarrassing details coming to light, it did not stop Johnson from facing a mauling from his own side. While a number of supportive MPs asked the Prime Minister to focus on channel crossings and

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Johnson’s defence deteriorates

That Boris Johnson regards the Gray update as an opportunity to come up for air was very clear from his statement on the report in the Commons. The Prime Minister’s opening remarks struck what seemed to be a reasonable balance between apologising, offering some operational changes to No. 10 (to show he was taking the report’s recommendations for ‘learning’ seriously) and trying to buoy up Tory MPs with a reminder of what his government was achieving. Brexit, freeports and the comparatively early end to Covid restrictions all came up. He might have been pleased with himself as he commended his statement to the House, but things went downhill after that. The

Friday

Katy Balls

The Met calls for the redaction of Sue Gray’s report

After a week of speculation about the release of Sue Gray’s report into partygate, its publication has now been complicated further. This morning the Metropolitan police released a statement confirming that they have asked the government to make ‘minimal reference’ to the eight events they are now investigating after being passed evidence from the Cabinet Office that triggered a police investigation. A Met spokesman said:  Pushing the report into the long grass is not without risk for the Prime Minister ‘For the events the Met is investigating, we asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report.’ The police add that they did not ask for ‘any

Thursday

George Osborne

My encounter with Sue Gray

I only voted in one no-confidence motion. The leader was Iain Duncan Smith, and it was a bit awkward. I spent hours every week helping Iain with Prime Minister’s Questions, and felt sorry for him. At the same time, his leadership was a disaster. Indeed, Tony Blair was going easy on him in the chamber just to keep him alive. So what to do? On the morning of the vote, I conferred with two other new MPs in the PMQ team — David Cameron and Boris Johnson. We all agreed he had to go and swore a pact. So off I went to cast my ballot. A few hours later,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory party is split on one issue: Boris

‘I can’t put into words how awful this is’ remarks one Tory MP. The party is split not on the kind of policy issue that people can debate but on the question of one man: the Prime Minister. Neither side is finding this struggle rewarding. The Johnson loyalists feel that they spend all day trying to bail water out of the boat, only to be hit by another wave as yet another story breaks. Those who want Johnson gone fear that the police investigation may slow every-thing down and that the current mantra, ‘Wait for the Sue Gray report’, will simply morph into ‘Wait for the Met report’. In No.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

A rather pointless PMQs lets Boris off the hook

Given the extraordinarily low expectations, Prime Minister’s Questions went reasonably well for Boris Johnson today. That is partly because it was a pointless session: everyone is waiting for the publication of the Sue Gray report, so most likely it will be forgotten very quickly and will make no difference to the main event (whenever that comes). Most likely it will be forgotten very quickly Johnson decided to make a forceful argument that he and the government were focused on more important things than cakes and parties. He lectured Keir Starmer for raising the matter at all when he was busy bringing the west together to threaten Russia with the toughest package of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Team Boris’s scorched earth strategy

Jacob Rees-Mogg is now arguing that the UK system has become so presidential that a new prime minister would feel obliged to call an election. The message to Tory MPs is clear: depose Boris Johnson and you’ll be going to the country in months — and do you really want to do that given the polls? Rees-Mogg’s argument is being used by the shadow whipping operation too. It has, from what I have been hearing, had some effects on new intake MPs. But among older intakes, there is a bit of a backlash to it.  There is a view that the argument takes them for fools. Yes, Labour and the

Wednesday

Steerpike

Who is Sue Gray?

She’s the name that’s on everyone’s lips in Westminster. As Tory ministers flounder to defend their beleaguered leader over partygate, their oft-repeated line ‘let’s wait for Sue Gray’s inquiry’ has elevated the little-known civil servant investigating No. 10’s parties into something of a Delphic oracle, the woman whose judgements could make or break a Prime Minister. But just who is the mandarin dubbed by her colleagues ‘Deputy God?’  Gray is, in some respects, a classic Whitehall mandarin. Now in her mid-sixties, she’s spent the bulk of her career climbing the rungs in the civil service since the 1970s, with stints in the Transport, Health and DWP ministries. Yet what distinguishes