Sue gray

After Tory MPs spent the afternoon laying into Boris Johnson over Sue Gray’s summary of her report, the Prime Minister finds himself in a much more fragile position than when he started the day. Tonight he addressed Tory MPs at a meeting of the 1922 committee. Given Johnson’s Commons appearance rattled MPs rather than improving relations, Johnson went into the meeting on the backfoot. The demand to hear the PM speak was so great that MPs arriving late were turned away. The demand to hear the PM speak was so great that MPs arriving late were turned away Johnson began the meeting by telling MPs he had a really torrid

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

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

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