The real villain in the story is Boris Johnson. He presided over a home and a workplace where the rules were ignored. The whole country has heard the stories.
Of course everyone knew the the prime minister told lies and was unreliable. But this – a character who appeared sometimes engagingly anarchic turns out to be contemptuous and disdainful, lacking the most basic decency and honour. He shames our country, the office of PM and disables the leadership of the UK. He is on his belly to Conservative MPs: decisions about the nation’s future now depend on whether his backstairs deals with wavering MPs stem the haemorrhage brought on by the sight of his suppurating character.
An authoritative account of what he did and the extent to which he lied about it is vital to allow the country to regain some self-respect, reach a decision about whether his premiership continues and move on to make decisions about the policies that matter for the people of the UK and the wider world.
Sue Gray, throughout all of last week, appeared to be a short time away from producing that account – until the blundering intervention of the Met. Its request to Gray not to make public in any detail her findings on the eight parties it suspects broke the law derails the prospect of a worthwhile report in the near future.
Johnson will now be handed a new “heavily redacted” version of Gray’s report in the coming hours or days, which will be compliant with the Met request that nothing “jeopardises” its inquiry.
The facts leading to the holding of these eight events and what happened at them is a vital part of the story, important to making judgments about the culpability of the prime minister. Not to give any detailed account of them would be disastrous. Perhaps even a heavily redacted account would be enough to reveal a level of wrongdoing that sinks the PM. I don’t know. What I do know is that the right course is a full account of what he did, made public as soon as possible. Redactions allow the PM to get away with it.
There is no law that requires the Met to make this ill-judged request or that requires Gray to comply with it. The Contempt of Court Act 1981 prohibits any action that could interfere with an investigation or a trial but only once a summons has been issued or an arrest made. Arrests or summonses are extremely unlikely for these breaches of the coronavirus regulations and a fixed penalty notice, the most likely response, does not trigger contempt protection. It is very unlikely that contempt law will ever kick in.
There are other laws that stop people intentionally interfering with an investigation but the idea that Gray’s motivation is to undermine the Met’s investigation is patently for the birds. So there is no legal reason for the Met to delay the Gray investigation and report.
It must be obvious even to a Metropolitan police commissioner under the most immense pressure that as much transparency as possible about what happened as quickly as reasonably possible trumps the remote possibility that once attenders at the No 10 parties read the Gray report they might amend their statements to the police about their involvement. That, according to off-the-record briefings from the Met, is the reason it has adopted this country-paralysing course.
The Met’s request to Gray not to publish details of the eight parties it suspects broke the law makes the Met look complicit with the prime minister in trying to delay for as long as possible the truth about what happened. Through incompetence rather than malice, the Met gives the impression that when it comes to investigating the prime minister it does what it is told.
The idea that the police are going to conduct interviews beyond asking was the suspect present is far-fetched. If the justification in the police’s own mind is that if Gray publishes the whole story, the police will not be able to trap the suspects into lies suggests it has lost all touch with proportion. That was the justification advanced by the secret barrister yesterday.
Why has the Met made this obviously disastrous judgment? Probably because its approach in all other investigations is to shut down all non-police inquiries until it has completed its own. So it has mindlessly applied the same rule here, either unaware or indifferent to the fact that fixed penalty notice cases do not attract the same protection.
The greased piglet might slip through the hands of those trying to hold him to account. If he does, it will be because he delayed a judgment on his conduct until the heat had gone out of the issue. Gray was a means forced on the PM, ensuring there would be a speedy conclusion.
The Met is in danger of stringing the process out for so long that the report loses all utility. Its purpose is to ensure that there is true accountability for the PM. That accountability comes from there being full transparency about his attitude and conduct towards the laws of the lockdown. In many cases, true accountability means facing justice in a criminal court. But not in this case – a fixed penalty notice does not bring any sense of justice done to those who paid what was very often a high price for obeying the rules.
That comes from the facts being exposed and the PM paying the price. Why can’t the Met let justice take its course and let Sue Gray deliver?
• Lord Falconer was lord chancellor in Tony Blair’s government
