Downing St party photos key to Gray inquiry

Boris Johnson apologises for ‘failures of leadership and judgment’ in allowing lockdown-breaching parties.

Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson received withering criticism from his own Conservative party, including from former leader Theresa May as the civil service investigation into Downing Street parties during lockdown found failures of leadership and judgement.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves from 10 Downing Street to make a statement to MPs in the House of Commons following the publication of the Gray report.

But Sue Gray, the chief investigator, said she was unable to deliver her full report because of ongoing Metropolitan Police investigations into some of the parties, which occurred in 2020 and 2021, including on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral.

It has emerged that the police are examining more than 300 photos from the various parties taken from more than 70 witnesses and attendees. If the police find any wrongdoing, those involved can be issued with penalty notices and a small fine.

But Ms Gray said that because of the police inquiries, “I am extremely limited in what I can say about those events and it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather”.

Her report looked at 16 gatherings, of which 12 are now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police. Of the 12, Mr Johnson and his wife Carrie are believed to have been at four including a sing-a-long for his 56th birthday in June 2020.

Senior Tories, as well as the Labour opposition ripped into Mr Johnson who said he was making changes to his political team and creating an Office of the Prime Minister.

Mr Johnson said he understood people’s anger and the sacrifices they had made during lockdown, promising “I get it and I will fix it”.

But Mr Johnson attempted to deflect away from his leadership crisis, insisting the public wanted parliament to focus on delivering Brexit and also levelling up economic benefits across the country instead of “talking about ourselves’’.

Former prime minister Theresa May asking a question of Boris Johnson, during his statement to MPs following the release of the Sue Gray report, in the House of Commons.

However Mrs May told her successor: “What the Sue Gray report does show is that No 10 Downing Street was not following the regulations they had imposed on members of the public.

“So, either my Right Honourable Friend had not read the rules, hadn’t understood what they meant - and others around him - or they didn’t think the rules applied to No. 10. Which was it?”

Other MP’s have openly criticised Mr Johnson, including senior Tory Bernard Jenkin. One Tory, Andrew Mitchell said of Mr Johnson: “I have to tell him he no longer enjoys my support”.

Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell withdraws his support for Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Ms Gray had reported that some of the behaviour, at the gatherings much of which occurred in the garden areas at the back of No.10 and No.11 Downing Street, was difficult to justify.

“At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of Government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time,’’ she wrote.

“At times it seems there was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public.”

She added there had been “failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No.10 and the Cabinet Office at different times’’. She said some of the events should not have been allowed to take place and “other events should not have been allowed to develop”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer derided Mr Johnson and demanded he resign.

He said: “By routinely breaking the rules he set, the Prime Minister took us all for fools, he held people’s sacrifice in contempt, he showed himself unfit for office.”

In other fiery exchanges the Westminster leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Ian Blackford was censored by the Speaker for accusing Mr Johnson of misleading parliament.