The partial publication of the official report into various Downing Street parties at the height of lockdown was Game Of Thrones without the dragons. Even so, it leaves Boris Johnson seriously singed.
If the dragons had been included, he might easily have been burnt to a frazzle.
Despite being gutted of significant and possibly devastating detail, the report’s general conclusions were damning enough.
There had been ‘failings of leadership and judgment’ in Mr Johnson’s No 10; there was a ‘serious failure’ at the heart of government to observe standards the rest of the country was expected to meet; and many of the ‘gatherings’ should not have been ‘allowed to take place or develop in the way they did’.
The report, compiled by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, complains about the ‘excessive consumption of alcohol’ in Downing Street.
Her tone is scathing, at times merciless. While the British people were being held to the highest standards during lockdown, she wrote, those running the show failed to meet them.
It’s clear she thinks a number of the gatherings breached lockdown guidelines, though she doesn’t explicitly say so.
Sue Gray’s report found there was a ‘serious failure’ at the heart of government to observe standards the country was expected to meet. Pictured: the PM in the commons yesterday
Set against all that, there is not a single word of comfort for the Prime Minister in her report. Not a compensating sentence he can point to.
His only cause for relief is that the damning detail remains unpublished. By omission, the PM lives to fight another day. His resignation cannot be demanded on the basis of an investigation whose most important bits remain redacted.
But last weekend’s consensus among the political and media classes, that he was off the hook, has proved to be premature. This is a Prime Minister still in deep trouble.
The Gray report was gutted at the insistence of the Metropolitan Police, which last week donned its hobnail boots and belatedly waded into Partygate with what has become its hallmark stupidity.
Knacker of the Yard, in the shape of the country’s leading Keystone Cop, Cressida Dick, insisted nothing could be published that might impinge on the Met’s own investigation.
The demand was a legal nonsense since we’re talking offences that incur fixed penalty notices, which means no judge, no jury, so there’s no question of minds being contaminated in advance.
But, after an army of lawyers from across government had their say, the Cabinet Office decided to comply. The result was to delay still further the resolution of Partygate.
You might think it relatively simple to determine if there were parties in Downing Street during lockdown — and, if there were, to take appropriate action.
The 12-page report, compiled by Sue Gray (pictured), a senior civil servant and published yesterday, complains about the ‘excessive consumption of alcohol’ in Downing Street
But so far this has proved beyond the finest minds of the British State, which has got its knickers in a right old twist trying to deal with it. This has suited Boris Johnson. Delay is in his interest.
Yesterday, in the House of Commons, he jumped on the cack-handed intervention of the Met to stonewall.
He used to insist we had to wait on the Gray report before he could say anything meaningful about Downing Street parties. Now we have Gray (sort of), he tells us we have to wait on the deliberations of the Met.
His strategy is as clear as it is brazen: play for time. He reckons the police will take their time (they usually do). Meanwhile, deputy heads will roll in Downing Street. Then when the Met complete their work he will say he’s already dealt with those responsible.
The Prime Minister will invent all sorts of reasons for not publishing the full Gray report. He hopes the news cycle will move on — Ukraine, living standards, gas prices, national insurance rises all beckon for headline attention — and we will forget all about Partygate. Perhaps.
But many senior Tories are worried that the longer this is not defused, the more it will start to hurt — and not just Mr Johnson but the whole Tory brand.
Nor are they happy with the way he’s dealing with it. Yesterday was the worst performance I’ve seen of a Prime Minister with his back to the wall at the despatch box. He began by trying to be contrite.
But he could not sustain the pose and quickly descended into party political knockabout, sounding churlish and tribal in the process.
Statesmanlike or conciliatory it was not.
He promised to clean up his Downing Street operation by creating a new Office of the Prime Minister with a new permanent secretary. The idea that the pickle he’s in can be dealt with by departmental reform suggests the Johnson Downing Street is already losing its grip on reality.
The Tory backbenches were not impressed. Tory grandee Andrew Mitchell joined former Cabinet minister David Davis in withdrawing his support from the PM.
Many Tory MPs are in despair, and morale is low. Normally they heckle Labour leader Keir Starmer when he mounts one of his attacks on Boris. Not yesterday. The silence was deafening.
Even SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford failed to rouse them. His pompous windbaggery can always be counted on to wind up the Tories. But they barely reacted yesterday, even when he was thrown out of the chamber for claiming Mr Johnson had misled the Commons. I suspect many Tory MPs take a similar view.
The PM’s strategy of constantly kicking the ball into the long grass is fraught with risk. It was clear yesterday that a number of Tory MPs agree with the opposition parties that Gray should be published in full — and quickly.
If Starmer was to lay a motion before the Commons to that effect, he might find there was a majority for it (most Tories would just have to abstain).
I’m told lawyerly Starmer isn’t keen on the Commons overruling the Met. He likes to remind us — regularly — that he was once Director of Public Prosecutions. His shadow cabinet might want to remind him that he’s now Leader of the Opposition.
The Gray report might get out in other ways. The dysfunctional Met has more leaks than the Titanic. Those who conclude they’re for the chop in a Johnson cull could start leaking like the Met.
And as the Prime Minister does not have the full report, some of its contents could come as something of a surprise to him.
There is every likelihood speedy publication of the full Gray report would be devastating for Mr Johnson.
The 16 parties investigated by Sue Gray would be laid out in all their gory detail, including the 12 now being looked into by the Met.
It’s understood Gray even confirmed that one took place in the Johnson family flat above Downing Street on November 13, 2020 — the day the PM’s consigliere, Dominic Cummings was fired.
So Boris is not out of the woods yet. Playing for time might work, and he can never be underestimated as the Harry Houdini of modern British politics.
Attention spans are short these days and the news cycle noisy and rapid.
But if, in dragging things out to save his own skin, Boris also succeeds in dragging down his party, then his days could be numbered sooner than he thinks.
