The Met has made a big mistake in tying its reputation to Boris Johnson’s

‘You can scrub wine stains off the walls of Downing Street. But a stain on the reputation of policing takes rather longer to rinse out.’ Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

Everyone is equal before the law. There are few greater cornerstones of liberal democracy than the idea that anyone, from pauper to prime minister, can have their collar felt. When that crumbles, corruption swiftly follows. So while the excruciating details of Sue Gray’s report on Downing Street’s lockdown party culture – the flippant WhatsApp from the prime minister’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, about the drinks they “got away with”, or the cleaners left mopping up drunken vomit – should weigh heaviest on political consciences, the spotlight now turns to the police.

Too many of us just can’t square those pictures of Boris Johnson raising a toast at his press secretary Lee Cain’s leaving do with the fact that some around the booze-laden table got fines, and he magically didn’t.