Afternoon summary
Boris Johnson faces a battle for his future in parliament after a cross-party committee found there was significant evidence he misled MPs over lockdown parties, and that he and aides almost certainly knew at the time they were breaking rules. In an analysis of the report from the privileges committee, Rowena Mason says:
For all the extra shocking details [the committee] have published, their argument appears to be very straightforward: Johnson announced the rules, broke the rules and then denied that the rules had been broken.
It would have been obvious to the prime minister, they suggest, that his presence at these gatherings was against the guidance, and therefore he could not claim to have been ignorant of parties or to have needed assurances that they were above board. These are core parts of Johnson’s defence, according to the statement he put out within minutes of the interim report’s publication.
The almost 500-word justification and a subsequent television appearance from Johnson showed he was in full fightback mode. Johnson claimed the report had vindicated him because there was nothing saying he had misled parliament knowingly or recklessly. The committee may not yet have concluded definitively that Johnson misled the Commons, but in no way does it put him in the clear.
Rowena’s full analysis is here.
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Former civil service chief says it's 'patently absurd' to say Sue Gray part of plot to bring down Johnson
In an article for the Guardian Bob Kerslake, a former head of the civil service, says that the theory that Sue Gray set out to bring down Boris Johnson is “patently absurd”. He is referring to claims made by Tories such as Jacob Rees-Mogg (see 11.09am) and Nadine Dorries (see 4.31pm).
Kerslake says:
The notion that Gray was part of a “stitch-up” of Boris Johnson and his government through her role in leading the Partygate inquiry is patently absurd. Sue had left her ethics role to work in Michael Gove’s department when the inquiry began, and took on the lead role only when the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, recused himself from the role. At that time, there was no vacancy for Labour’s chief of staff role.
Gray’s report was hard hitting but scrupulously fair, and indeed the prime minister argued when it was published that he had been exonerated by it. Conspiracy theorists should not waste time looking any further. The prime suspect for the Johnson government’s demise is Boris Johnson.
You can read the full article here.
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One of the intriguing aspects of today’s privileges committee report is that it shows some important evidence was only received on Wednesday this week (1 March) – even though the committee first appealed for evidence, including from anonymous whistleblowers, in July last year.
In December 2021 Boris Johnson told MPs at PMQs that he had been assured the Covid rules had been followed in Number 10 at all times.
Today’s report says the committee has had evidence suggesting he had not been given that assurance. As evidence in the footnotes it says:
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
“Don’t think I advised the PM to say that – I mean that the socially distancing guidelines – to say they were followed completely, they are difficult things to say”
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
“Evidence we have received from the Cabinet Office shows that you and others attended an ‘office meeting’ with Mr Johnson on the morning of 1 December 2021, on which date Mr Johnson told the House of Commons ‘all guidance was followed in No 10’. Was there discussion in this meeting of the following points […] ii. Whether Covid guidance was adhered to at all times in No 10”
“I do not believe we discussed this with Mr Johnson during the meeting”
“Evidence we have received from the Cabinet Office shows that you and others attended two ‘catch-up’ meetings with Mr Johnson on 8 December 2021, on which date Mr Johnson told the house […] that ‘the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times’. Was there discussion in this meeting of the following points […] ii. Whether Covid guidance was adhered to all times in No 10
“I did not advise the PM to say this, no”
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My colleague Aletha Adu has a roundup of the most revealing messages published today in the privileges committee report.
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Johnson needs to explain why he did not correct record 'at earliest opportunity', says privileges committee
Most of the commentary about the privileges committee inquiry has focused on whether or not Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs when he told them the Covid rules were being followed in Downing Street. Giving misleading information to MPs is a contempt of parliament.
But the committee will also consider why Johnson, when it became clear that he had misled the Commons, did not correct the record more speedily. Today’s report shows that the committee wants to pursue this with him. It says:
The committee will want to hear from Mr Johnson why, instead of correcting the record at the earliest opportunity, he declined to answer questions that were within his direct knowledge, instead telling the house to await the report of the second permanent secretary ….
It appears that Mr Johnson did not correct the statements that he repeatedly made and did not use the well-established procedures of the house to correct something that is wrong at the earliest opportunity.
Not correcting the record promptly is potentially a serious matter because, as the committee pointed out in its report last year setting out the issues it would be considering, Erskine May (the parliamentary rulebook) says:
It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.
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Johnson declines to criticise his supporters who are now saying Sue Gray's report discredited
Here are the key lines from Boris Johnson’s TV interview.
Johnson suggested that, in light of the fact that she has now taken a job with Labour, Sue Gray was the wrong person to conduct the Partygate report. When it was put to him that he was now questioning the impartiality of a civil servant, he replied:
As I say, people will make up their own minds about this.
And I think that, if you told me at the time I commissioned Sue Gray to do the inquiry, if you’ve told me all the stuff that I now know, I think I might have cross-examined her more closely about her independence and I might have thought about whether she was … sorry, I might have invited her to reflect whether she was really the right person to do it.
He declined to criticise his supporters who are now saying the Gray report is discredited. See 2.31pm for examples of what the Johnsonites are saying about the report. Asked about their comments, Johnson declined to say that he agreed with them, and instead tried to change the subject. When pressed on this, and asked if he would tell them they were wrong to say the report was discredited, he dodged the question again, before saying: “People will draw their own conclusions.”
He claimed today’s report showed there was no evidence to suggest he knew the rules were being broken in No 10 when he told MPs they weren’t. He said:
What is so interesting about the report today is that after 10 months of efforts and sifting through all the innumerable WhatsApps and messages, they found absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise [ie, to suggest that he knew the rules were being broken].
There’s absolutely nothing to show that any adviser of mine or civil servant warned me in advance that events might be against the rules, nothing to say that afterwards they thought it was against the rules, nothing to show that I myself believed or was worried that something was against the rules.
This is not correct. There is no evidence in the report that proves categorically that Johnson knew the rules were being broken when he assured MPs they weren’t. But there is quite a lot of new evidence to suggest that he knew. The committee says: “The evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Mr Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings.” See 12.21pm.
He claimed that he was “very, very surprised” when he was told that an event he attended in the cabinet room – the suprise birthday “party”, for which he was fined – was against the rules.
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Q: Some of your supporters says this discredits her report.
Johnson declines to say that himself.
And that’s it. I will post full quotes from the interview shortly.
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Johnson says he would have queried Sue Gray's independence during Partygate if he had known she would join Labour
Q: After the reports came out, did you ever think back and consider whether events had been within the rules?
Johnson says the initial story was about something he had not attended.
He asks why he would have gone to the dispatch box and said the events were within the rules if he had known he could have been contradicted.
He says he wants to add a “codicil”. He says it is a “peculiarity” that Sue Gray, who was presented to him as someone impartial, has now been appointed as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
Now people may want to look at that in a different light, he says.
Q: It is quite something to question a civil servant like that, isn’t it?
Johnson says people will make up their own minds.
He says, if he knew then what he knows now, he would have “cross-examined her more closely about her independence” before appointing her to do the Partygate report.
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Q: The committee says it should have been obvious to you rules were broken.
Johnson says as PM you do what civil servants advise you to do. You move from one event to another. As people know, he went to some events where he said thank you. He believed implicitly they were within the rules. And no one told him, before or after, that they were against the rules.
Q: But the report has a WhatsApp message from your communications director saying he was struggling to justify what happened?
Johnson says that was the birthday event in the cabinet room. No 10 was so sure it was within the rules that the official photographer was there.
If he had thought it was against the rules, he would have raised it with staff. There is nothing to suggest that. That is because he implicitly thought what happened was within the rules.
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Johnson says the reason there is no evidence to show that he thought what was happening in No 10 was against the rules was because he did not think that.
He is certain there has been no contempt, he says.
Boris Johnson has recorded a clip for broadcasters about the privileges committee report. Sky and BBC News are showing it now. From what we have heard so far, it broadly just replicates what he said in a written statement earlier. (See 12.45pm.)
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People 'standing 4-5 deep' at No 10 leaving do attended by Johnson, says privileges committee report
ITV News, which broke some of the key Partygate stories, launched a podcast about the story in January and its report quoted a source saying that, when Boris Johnson attended the leaving party for Lee Cain on 13 November 2020, he joked about it being “the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now”.
The privileges committee report contains more evidence about this. It says:
On 27 November 2020, when the rules and guidance in force for the prevention of the spread of Covid included restrictions on indoor gatherings of two or more people, and maintaining social distancing of 2 metres or 1 metre with risk mitigations in the workplace wherever possible, Mr Johnson attended and gave a speech at a gathering in the vestibule of the No 10 press office to thank a member of staff who was leaving. We received evidence that there was no social distancing and people were standing 4–5 deep. We received evidence that Mr Johnson said that it was “probably the most unsocially distanced gathering in the UK right now”.
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Some of Boris Johnson’s supporters would like him back as prime minister. But Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister and a strong Johnson supporter during the Brexit process, told Times Radio that he should not come back. He said:
I don’t doubt that Boris feels that he left number 10 prematurely. But let’s not forget why it was. It was over the Pincher affair …
The idea that Boris Johnson could be back as prime minister when those were the circumstances which finally led to his departure, I’m afraid is fanciful.
Boris will have my admiration for a long time. He saved this country from a major constitutional crisis. He saved us from Jeremy Corbyn. And that means he saved the future of this nation. And I personally am very reluctant to be critical because we owe him this country’s prosperity and freedom.
But the idea of him coming back – I think he should bank the wins he’s got. Honestly, Boris, thank you, you saved the country. Don’t come back.
Today’s privileges committee report includes five photographs showing Boris Johnson at social gatherings in No 10 during Covid. Two of them are from 19 June 2020, when there was an impromptu birthday party for Boris Johnson in the cabinet room (for which he was fined). Two are from 13 November 2020, when there was a party to mark the departure of Lee Cain, the head of communications. And one is from 14 January 2021, when there was a leaving do for two private secretaries.
There are four photos from the 19 June event and five from the 13 November event in the Sue Gray report. The pictures in the privileges committee report are the same or similar, but the pixallation/blurring is less intense, which means the latest versions give a better sense of how little social distancing there was.
Here is one of the new ones from 19 June.
And here is one of the new ones from 13 November.
The Gray report did not include any pictures from the 14 January event. Here is the one from today’s report. Although it shows Johnson addressing someone via video, there are four open bottles of sparkling wine on the table, suggesting some degree of partying.
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Like Labour (see 1.52pm), the Liberal Democrats want Rishi Sunak to commit to accepting the findings of the privileges committee inquiry into Boris Johnson. Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, said:
It’s no surprise [Johnson is] doing his utmost to wriggle out of this inquiry given the questions being raised are this damning.
Rishi Sunak must immediately and publicly commit to backing the committee if the former prime minister is found to be guilty.
Johnson ally suggests Tory MPs should try to block privileges committee inquiry
Boris Johnson is now encouraging Tory MPs to block the privileges committee inquiry. An ally of the former PM told reporters:
The privileges committee has admitted that its central focus is the evidence of Sue Gray, who is now Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. This is beyond a farce and totally lacks credibility. All Conservative MPs should take note: apparently it’s okay to be put through a parliamentary process which is reliant on material provided by the leader of the opposition’s chief of staff.
My colleagues Jessica Elgot and Peter Walker were getting a similar briefing last night.
But the privileges committee inquiry into Johnson was set up on the basis of a vote by the Commons. To halt the inquiry, a new vote would be required. There is probably zero chance of Rishi Sunak tabling such a vote (when the Commons last voted to protect a Tory MP, Owen Paterson, from a disciplinary process, it did not end well) and, even if such a vote were to take place, MPs would almost certainly vote to let the inquiry continue.
Johnson's allies claim Gray report discredited, with Nadine Dorries saying it was written to bring him down
Boris Johnson has not just released a statement in his own name about the privileges committee report. (See 12.45pm.) In it he said he would “leave it to others to decide how much confidence may now be placed in [Sue Gray’s] inquiry” given that she had now accepted a job with Labour.
In fact, Johnson is not just leaving it to others. His office has released to journalists statements from four Johnson-supporting Tory MPs all suggesting the evidence in the Gray report is now discredited. The four MPs are: Simon Clarke, the former business secretary, Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, Mark Jenkinson, a former whip, and Peter Bone, best known as a lifelong backbencher, but deputy leader of the Commons for a few weeks at the end of Johnson’s premiership when he was struggling to fill ministerial posts.
Clarke said:
Before the privileges committee can continue and rely on Sue Gray’s evidence, which will be pivotal, we need an urgent inquiry.
Bone said:
The privileges committee has today admitted its key witness is none other than Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff … This is a farce.
Jenkinson said:
How can the work Keir Starmer’s top political adviser be used against Boris like this? This cannot possibly be a fair process.
Dorries also recorded an interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One in which she alleged Gray must have been motivated by a desire to bring down Johnson when she published her report. She said:
What was [Gray’s] motivation in writing that report? I think it can only be concluded that, given her new role, her new political role, it was to bring down the Brexit-supporting prime minister, Boris Johnson.
I don’t think her report is actually worthy of the paper it is is now written on.
Dorries also said Gray was possibly “having dual conversations with both Keir Starmer, and Labour, at the time she was writing that report” – although Dorries also said “this is to be uncovered yet” (which sounded like an admission that Dorries was guessing). Labour says it was not talking to Gray during Partygate. (See 10.30am.)
“I don’t think her report is worthy of the paper it’s written on because obviously it’s written by someone who's patently broken the civil service code and had deep political motivations”@NadineDorries on Labour job for Partygate probe chief Sue Grayhttps://t.co/nqEVKYSOii pic.twitter.com/KoJsdhkVN7
— The World at One (@BBCWorldatOne) March 3, 2023
Dorries also claimed it would now be wrong for the privileges committee to use the Gray report and its findings as evidence against Johnson.
"They know there will be huge doubt and they will be discredited if they use that report to reach their conclusions"
— The World at One (@BBCWorldatOne) March 3, 2023
Nadine Dorries tells #BBCWATO the Privileges Committee should no longer use the Sue Gray report in its Boris Johnson investigation pic.twitter.com/awFqv3iYgA
This is all getting a bit Trumpian. No one has provided any evidence to show that any of the evidence published in the Gray report was inaccurate. And as for Gray’s conclusions, Boris Johnson accepted them when he made a statement to MPs after its publication.
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Labour says privileges committee evidence 'absolutely damning' about Johnson
Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, has issued a statement in response to the privileges committee report. She says the evidence in it is “absolutely damning” about Boris Johnson, but most of what she says is about Rishi Sunak.
Rayner suggests that Sunak is complicit in Partygate, and she says he should stop Johnson from continuing to get his legal advice in relation to the funded by the taxpayer. She says:
The evidence in this report is absolutely damning on the conduct of Boris Johnson, not just in the crime but the cover up. All the while, Rishi Sunak sat on his hands, living and working next door but doing nothing to end the rule breaking.
While families up and down the country dutifully followed the rules unable to visit loved ones, missing weddings and funerals, Boris Johnson was repeatedly holding drinks and social events at the heart of government – events attended by the current prime minister.If Rishi Sunak is to meet his promise of integrity and accountability, he must stop propping up his disgraced prime minister and his legal defence fund, fully endorse the committee’s recommendations and make clear that if Boris Johnson is found to have repeatedly misled parliament his career is over.
Boris Johnson occasionally joined drinks gatherings in No 10 press office on Friday evenings during Covid, report says
The privileges committee in its report says that Boris Johnson occasionally joined in drinks gatherings in the No 10 press office on Friday evenings. It says:
There is evidence that a culture of drinking in the workplace in some parts of No 10 continued after Covid restrictions began, and that events such as birthday parties and leaving parties for officials continued in No 10 despite workplace guidance on social distancing and regulations imposing restrictions on gatherings. In particular, the events that continued included Friday evening drinks gatherings in the press office area. Mr Johnson is said by witnesses to have seen Press Office gatherings on his way to the No 10 flat, and to have occasionally joined these gatherings when his attendance had not been planned. We conducted a site visit to No 10 Downing Street on 21 February 2023, at which we confirmed that a line of sight exists from the bottom of the stairs leading up to what was then Mr Johnson’s flat into the press office vestibule where these gatherings took place, and that for Mr Johnson to have been present in the vestibule during the gatherings he would have had to proceed from the staircase through a further intervening anteroom.
A footnote says that the information about Johnson occasionally joining these drinks gatherings comes from written evidence submitted to the committee and received on 6 February. It does not say any more about that evidence.
Updated
What privileges committee says about how Johnson may have misled MPs about Partygate
This is what the privileges committee says in its report about the evidence that Boris Johnson may have misled MPs about Partygate.
There is evidence that the House of Commons may have been misled in the following ways which the Committee will explore:
a) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson said on 8 December 2021 that no rules or guidance had been broken in No 10. The second permanent secretary and the Metropolitan police have already come to the conclusion that was not correct, including in relation to specific gatherings for which Mr Johnson asserted this was the case.
b) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson failed to tell the House about his own knowledge of the gatherings where the rules or guidance had been broken. That is because there is evidence that he attended them.
c) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson said on 8 December 2021 that he relied upon repeated assurances that the rules had not been broken. Initial evidence to us suggested Mr Johnson was assured by two individuals who had worked at No 10 at the time that they did not think the gathering of 18 December 2020 had broken Covid rules.
However, we note that:
i) Mr Johnson had personal knowledge about gatherings which he could have disclosed, although his personal knowledge about the gathering of 18 December 2020 may have been limited as he did not personally attend.
ii) We have received evidence that there was no assurance about any gathering’s compliance with the guidance that was in place at the time (as opposed to compliance with the Covid rules).
iii) The purported assurances were only about the gathering of 18 December 2020, not more generally about No 10’s compliance with the rules and guidance. We have received no evidence that an assurance was provided in relation to the specific gatherings of 20 May 2020, 19 June 2020, 13 November 2020, 27 November 2020 and 14 January 2021.
iv) The context for the initial purported assurance was in response to a media inquiry and the assertion that Covid rules were followed was initially developed as a media line to take.
v) The initial purported assurance came from the director of communications at No. 10, a special adviser appointed by Mr Johnson, not a permanent civil servant.
vi) The purported assurances consisted only of what those individuals themselves believed about the compliance of the gathering of 18 December 2020 with the rules.
Whether those who gave these purported assurances to Mr Johnson ever intended for him to rely upon them in the House, and whether it was appropriate for Mr Johnson to do so, is a question the Committee will want to consider.
d) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson gave the impression that there needed to be an investigation by the second permanent secretary to establish whether the rules and guidance had been broken before he could answer questions to the house. While repeatedly making that statement to the house he appears to have had personal knowledge that he did not reveal.
The committee’s inquiry is focusing on whether or not Johnson misled MPs in various comments he made in the chamber in response to questions about Partygate. Misleading MPs in the chamber can be a contempt of parliament, and the privileges committee is in charge of investigating contempt allegations.
Deliberately misleading the Commons is also a breach of the ministerial code, but that is not a matter for the committee, which is a parliamentary body. Breaches of the ministerial code are normally investigated by the No 10 standards adviser. But the adviser investigates serving ministers, not former ones.
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Privileges committee rejects Johnson's claim its findings based on Sue Gray's report
The privileges committee has rejected claims that its report out today is based on the Sue Gray report. Boris Johnson and his supporters are claiming that it is and that, because Gray has accepted a job with Labour, her findings are discredited. (See 11.09am and 12.45pm.) A committee spokesperson said:
The committee’s report is not based on the Sue Gray report.
The committee’s report is based on evidence in the form of:
– material supplied by the government to the committee in November, including communications such as WhatsApps, emails and photographs from the official Downing Street photographer.
– evidence from witnesses who were present either at the time of the gatherings or at the time of preparation for Boris Johnson’s statements to parliament.
Sue Gray was present at neither and is not one of those witnesses.
Privileges committee says 'reluctance' of No 10 to hand over evidence when Johnson was PM held up inquiry
In its report the privileges committee says the “reluctance” of the government to provide it with unredacted evidence when Boris Johnson was still prime minister held up its inquiry. It says:
Our inquiry was initially held up by a reluctance on the part of the government to provide unredacted evidence …
The committee wrote to the government on 14 July, in the same terms as it wrote to Mr Johnson on that date, to request relevant materials in its possession. The government responded to our request by providing, on 24 August, documents which were so heavily redacted as to render them devoid of any evidential value. Some material had been redacted even though it was already in the public domain. Following further engagement between the committee and ministers and senior officials, which took some months, unredacted disclosure of all relevant material was finally provided on 18 November.
Boris Johnson claims he has been 'vindicated' by report, and criticises committee for relying on Gray's evidence
Boris Johnson claims today’s report from the privileges committee has “vindicated” him.
In a statement just released, he said:
It is clear from this report that I have not committed any contempt of parliament. It is also clear that what I have been saying about this matter from the beginning has been vindicated.
It is clear from this report that I have not committed any contempt of parliament.
That is because there is no evidence in the report that I knowingly or recklessly misled parliament, or that I failed to update parliament in a timely manner.
Nor is there any evidence in the report that I was aware that any events taking place in No 10 or the Cabinet Office were in breach of the rules or the guidance.
Like any prime minister I relied upon advice from officials. There is no evidence that I was at any stage advised by anyone, whether a civil servant or a political adviser, that an event would be against the rules or the guidance before it went ahead. There is no evidence that I was later advised that any such event was contrary to requirements.
So, when I told the house that the rules and the guidance had been followed, that was my honest belief.
He said that, if he had known about “a matter of such importance” (ie, Partygate), he would have raised it with his team, and they would have raised it with him. He went on:
No such concerns were raised on either side and all my statements to the House of Commons were based on that understanding and advice.
And he criticised the privileges committee for “relying on” evidence provided by Sue Gray in her Partygate report. He said:
I note that the committee has emphasised their wish to be fair. They have made reference on no fewer than 26 occasions to a personage they bashfully describe as “the second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office.”
That is of course, Sue Gray.
So it is surreal to discover that the committee proposes to rely on evidence culled and orchestrated by Sue Gray, who has just been appointed chief of staff to the leader of the Labour party.
This is particularly concerning given that the committee says it is proposing to rely on “the findings in the second permanent secretary’s report” as “relevant facts which the committee will take into account”.
I leave it to others to decide how much confidence may now be placed in her inquiry and in the reports that she produced.
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Partygate: official said No 10 worried 'about leaks of PM having piss up' and added 'I don't think it's unwarranted'
The privileges committee report is thick with footnotes providing evidence supporting what is said in the main text.
Here are three footnotes supporting the extract posted at 12.21pm.
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
WhatsApp message: [No. 10 official, 28/04/2021, 16:47:12] “[No 10 official]’s worried about leaks of PM having a piss up and to be fair I don’t think it’s unwarranted”
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
WhatsApp messages: [Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 06:54:30] “Have we had any legal advice on the birthday one?” […]
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 06:55:06] “Haven’t heard any explanation of how it’s in the rules”
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
WhatsApp messages: [No 10 official, 25/01/2022, 08:04:46] “I’m trying to do some Q&A, it’s not going well”
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 08:05:12] “I’m struggling to come up with a way this one is in the rules in my head”
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 08:05:20] “PM was eating his lunch of course”
[No. 10 official, 25/01/2022, 08:06:47] “I meant for the police bit but yeah as ridiculous as the cake thing is it is difficult”
[No. 10 official, 25/01/2022, 08:06:56] “‘Reasonably necessary for work purposes’”
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 08:07:40] “Not sure that one works does it. Also blows another great gaping hole in the PM’s account doesn’t it?”
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'Struggling [to see] how this one is in rules' - new evidence released to back claims Johnson misled MPs over Partygate
The privileges committee report out today includes evidence that has not been made public before, suggesting Boris Johnson was not being honest with MPs when he told them the Covid rules were followed at all times in No 10.
It includes this paragraph.
The evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Mr Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings.
There is evidence that those who were advising Mr Johnson about what to say to the press and in the house were themselves struggling to contend that some gatherings were within the rules.
• The director of communications stated in a WhatsApp of 25 January 2022 to a No 10 official in relation to the gathering of 19 June 2020 that “Haven’t heard any explanation of how it’s in the rules”.
• In a separate WhatsApp exchange with a No 10 official of 25 January 2022 in relation to the gathering of 19 June 2020, the director of communications stated: “I’m struggling to come up with a way this one is in the rules in my head”, and in response to a suggestion that they describe the event as “reasonably necessary for work purposes”, “not sure that one works does it. Also blows another great gaping hole in the PM’s account doesn’t it?”
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Boris Johnson to give evidence to privileges committee inquiry into claims he misled MPs in week starting 20 March
Boris Johnson will give evidence in the week beginning 20 March to the Commons privileges committee investigating allegations he misled MPs about Partygate, the committee has announced. The committee said:
The committee of privileges today is taking further steps in its inquiry into the conduct of Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP. Mr Johnson has accepted the committee’s invitation to give oral evidence in public in the week beginning 20 March.
The exact date and time of the evidence session will be announced shortly. The session arises out of the referral from the House of Commons of the matter to the committee. The session, which will be held in public, will see the committee’s members, comprised of four Conservative, two Labour and one SNP member, question Mr Johnson on a range of matters arising from evidence submitted to the inquiry, as set out in a report published today.
The committee has also published a report summarising the issues it will raise with Johnson.
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Civil servants' union leader says it is 'nonsense' to think Sue Gray will pass government secrets to Labour
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represent senior civil servants, has criticised Conservative MPs claiming that Sue Gray’s decision to take a job with Keir Starmer means her Partygate report is discredited. In an interview with Sky News, he said:
[Gray] produced a report which was welcomed at the time, including by the prime minister …
What we are talking about here is someone who has given her life to public service.
She had a fearsome reputation for her integrity. She has done some of the most difficult jobs in government. I think it is really disappointing to see ministers now trying to trash that simply because she has decided to take a very different job later on in her career.
Penman also said it was “nonsense” to think she would divulge government secrets to Labour.
The idea that Sue Gray would somehow be taking this job to divulge the secrets of the Conservative party or of government is obviously just nonsense, and most ministers understand and know that.
He said that, even though Gray no longer works for the civil service, she remains bound by the restriction on revealing confidential information that applied when she was a civil servant.
Yesterday John Swinney announces that he will stand down as Scotland’s deputy first minister when a new SNP leader is elected to replace Nicola Sturgeon as first minister. In an interview on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, he said he had not yet decided whom to back in the leadership contest. Asked to give his preference, he replied:
I’ve not come to any conclusions, I’m listening to the debate, I’m observing the contest and if I feel the need to say something then I will do.
The three candidates are Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan.
Private landlords have been accused of “making up stories” about the state of the rental sector in an attempt to persuade the government to scrap UK tax measures forecast to cost them close to £1bn a year, my colleague Robert Booth reports.
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Gray appointment 'undermines civil service' and raises questions about Starmer's judgment, says Johnson's former PPS
Two of Boris Johnson’s leading supporters in parliament are Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries and they have been forcefully arguing that Sue Gray’s appointment as chief of staff to Keir Starmer means her Partygate report is now discredited. This is what Rees-Mogg said on his GB News show last night.
It is hard not to feel that she has been rewarded and offered a plum job for effectively destroying a prime minister and creating a coup. This blows apart the idea of civil service impartiality. This appointment stinks.
Her report brought down the first minister of the crown, who had a majority of 80 from the electorate. This appointment invalidates her Partygate report and shows that there was a socialist cabal of Boris haters, who were delighted to remove him.
And this is what Dorries posted on Twitter yesterday.
Sue Gray move to Starmers office not surprising. Whilst writing report, she used QC who tweeted out pro Labour anti gov tweets whilst Alistair Campbell heaped praise upon her. Her comms assistant briefed against Johnson from day 1. The Gray report was a stitch up of PM and CSs
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorries) March 2, 2023
But it was left to a more humble Commons Johnsonite to make this argument on the Today programme. Alexander Stafford, the Tory MP and former parliamentary private secretary to Johnson, was interviewed on the programme just before Labour’s Lucy Powell. But he went down in flames, and the interview was terminated early, because he repeatedly refused to answer questions from Nick Robinson, who wanted to know if Stafford accepted that the No 10 lockdown parties did actually happen and if, since he was arguing Gray’s report was flawed, he wanted a fresh investigation into Partygate.
Before Stafford was cut off, he said the Gray appointment was “dodgy” because it did not pass the “sniff test”. He said:
Of course it’s dodgy. How can somebody who only a matter of months ago condemned one prime minister, then go and work for the leader of the opposition in such a close capacity? This really doesn’t pass the sniff test, it really undermines the work that she’s done, undermines the civil service and really puts in question Sir Keir’s complete judgment.
This is from Jake Richards, the Labour candidate in Stafford’s Rother Valley constituency.
Alexander Stafford went on @BBCRadio4 this morning, but the interview was ended early because he refused to answer simple questions. It would be amusing, if it wasn’t for his apparent apathy about lockdown parties in Number 10 and his determination to defend Johnson. Listen 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/r7i4RIS3zr
— Jake Richards (@JakeBenRichards) March 3, 2023
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Sue Gray hasn't been hired to 'spill the beans' and won't be involved in election campaigning, says Labour
Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, has used her morning interview round to rubbish claims that Keir Starmer’s decision to hire Sue Gray means the findings of her Partygate report are now discredited. (See 9.20am.) But she had more to say on the story too. Here are the main points.
Powell refused to commit Labour to disclosing when it first approached Gray about working for Keir Starmer. In her interview on Today, Powell said she did not know when those talks started. Asked if the party would disclose that information, she said she could not say.
But she said that Gray was not talking to Labour about taking up a job in Starmer’s office at the time of the Partygate investigation. She said:
What I do know ... is that the idea that Sue Gray had conversations with anybody during that time that she was investigating these very serious allegations – she wasn’t even talking to the prime minister and to others in government at the time because she was so determined to maintain her impartiality and independence ... It was a year ago now.
Powell said that Gray was not being hired to “spill the beans” on Tory ministers. Asked on Times Radio if Gray’s knowledge of ministers made her attractive to Labour, Powell replied:
Absolutely not. And, of course, there’s no suggestion whatsoever that Sue would reveal any of that information. It’s not what she’s coming in to do.
She also told Today:
Sue Gray has worked for successive governments, Labour governments Conservative governments, she’s worked for prime ministers, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Theresa May, many of whom hated each other, and she’s never ever spilled the beans on any of those.
Powell said Gray would not be involved in Labour’s election campaigning. She said:
The role that Sue will be doing is entirely separate from our election operation which is really formidable now ... that’s a separate task to the task that Sue is hopefully going to come and join the Labour party to help us with, which is getting ready so that we can actually change the way government works.
Powell said that Gray and Starmer would abide by the recommendations of the advisory committee on business appointments, which advises on how long ministers and senior officials should wait before taking up an appointment outside government. As a minimum Acoba is likely to recommend a three-month wait, but it could say the appointment should be delayed for up to two years. Powell said the party would “absolutely” abide by Acoba’s advice.
Powell said Gray was being hired to get Labour ready for government. She said:
As we look forward to the next general election, he wants to make sure that he and the rest of us in the shadow cabinet, and the whole team, are ready for if and when we win the next election.
Sue Gray is a hugely respected civil servant with a lot of experience. Keir has made no secret of the fact that he had been looking for someone with that recent government experience that can help the Labour party, and help him personally, get ready for that big transition to government.
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Neil Coyle should be suspended from Commons for five days for bullying and harrassment, report says
The MP Neil Coyle should be suspended from the House of Commons for five days after breaching parliament’s bullying and harassment policy, the independent expert panel says.
The IEP, which was set up to consider bullying and harassment claims against MPs, has published a report recommending the suspension after the “foul-mouthed and drunken abuse” of another MP’s assistant.
In another case, Coyle, who was elected as a Labour MP but who has been sitting as an independent since being suspended by the party, was “accused of bullying and harassment of a parliamentary journalist”. Both incidents occurred in the strangers’ bar in the Commons.
Sir Stephen Irwin, the chair of the IEP, said:
The most striking aggravating factor [in relation to the first complaint] was the ‘power gradient’ between an MP and a junior member of staff. The most striking aggravating factor [in relation to the second one] was the racial overtone in the verbal abuse. In relation to both episodes, it was clear that very marked abuse of alcohol was at the root of events.
As to mitigating factors, it was clear that the respondent had accepted what he had done, and fully agreed that what he did was far below any acceptable level of conduct. He also acknowledged that he had been heavily abusing alcohol at the time. Since then he had stopped consuming alcohol completely, and had maintained his abstention for the year following the complaints.
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Sue Gray appointment raises 'tricky questions' about trust between ministers and civil servants, says IfG thinktank
Alex Thomas, a former civil servant who now works at the Institute for Government thinktank, has been giving interviews about the propriety of the Sue Gray appoinment this morning. Here are some of the main points he has been making.
Thomas described the appointment of Gray as chief of staff to Keir Starmer as “unusual” and “surprising”. He told the Today programme:
I do think this is unusual, it’s surprising. Although civil servants have crossed the aisle before – Jonathan Powell for Tony Blair, or others – I mean, it hasn’t happened before with a civil servant who was still serving of this seniority and with the public profile and career history in the deep centre of government that Sue Gray has.
He said the appointment “raises quite tricky questions for the civil service in the long term about the trust of relationship between ministers and civil servants”.
He said it was important for Gray to stress that she would not be divulging confidential information she obtained when she was in government. He told Times Radio:
Sue Gray can’t unknow what she knows. And if she does this job, I do think she needs to be very clear she’s not going to share details of the work that she did in government.
But Thomas rejected suggestions that the appointment meant Gray might have acted in a biased manner as a civil servant. Thomas said that he had worked with her, and that he had always seen her “behave entirely impartially and equally robustly with ministers and political advisers of any party”.
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'Utterly ludicrous' to claim hiring Sue Gray means Partygate report was biased, says Labour
Good morning. Conservative MPs are furious this morning about the news that Sue Gray, the civil servant who led the Partygate investigation, has been poached by Labour to work as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. It is not that unusual for civil servants, who have to be impartial, to go to work for political parties, where, by definition, they are not. The most prominent example is Jonathan Powell, who left a senior job at the Foreign Office to become Tony Blair’s chief of staff two years before an election that Blair seemed certain to win. Gray is following his example, and presumably she hopes the comparison holds. Powell lasted 10 years in Downing Street, and was one of the most influential figures in that administration.
But there are some differences, which do raise legitimate questions about the appointment. Gray was at permanent secretary level, making her more senior than Powell was. At one stage she was the head of propriety and ethics at the Cabinet Office, which means she knows more about ministers’ secrets than almost anyone. And she oversaw the Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson, which contributed to his downfall. The Cabinet Office is concerned that she may have accepted the job before notifying the advisory committee on business appointments and yesterday it said it was “reviewing the circumstances under which she resigned”.
Looking ahead, there are concerns that in the future she might use confidential information she has to benefit the Labour party. But there are plenty of people who do jobs that give them access to privileged information, and then change jobs or careers but continue to respect the obligations of confidentiality from their previous employment. Civil servants are no different.
The more outlandish, wacky and conspiratorial concerns about the Gray appointment this morning involve looking behind, and asking whether this means Gray was biased against Johnson all along. This theory has ended up on the Daily Mail front page.
Friday's Mail: "Is this proof the partygate probe was a Labour plot?" #BBCPapers #TomorrowsPapersToday https://t.co/5guNLWeqIC pic.twitter.com/6kTu2pRgKn
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 2, 2023
As Jessica Elgot and Peter Walker report in our overnight story, Johnson’s allies are now trying to argue that the Gray appointment means the whole Partygate scandal was bogus, and that the Commons inquiry into claims Johnson misled MPs about it should be abandoned.
Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, and a former chief of staff to Ed Miliband, has been giving interviews for Labour today. She told the Today programme that it was “utterly ludicrous” to suggest the Labour appointment discredited the findings of the Gray report. Powell said:
The suggestion that somehow this [appointment] colours Sue Gray’s independent and impartial reports into Partygate and all those other matters are really utterly ludicrous.
She wasn’t the one wheeling the suitcases of booze into Number 10. And the prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson, and most of his acolytes at the time were at pains to tell us what a formidable and impartial and independent civil servant Sue Gray was.
It is also worth pointing out that no one has provided any evidence to suggest the facts or findings in the report were flawed. At the time, many in Westminster felt Gray had, if anything, been soft on the prime minister, for example by declining to investigate in detail reports that his wife, Carrie, hosted a party with loud Abba music in their private Downing Street flat on the day Dominic Cummings resigned.
There will be much more on this as the day goes on. We are getting a lobby briefing too, and MPs are debating private members’ bills, but otherwise the diary is relatively empty.
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Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
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