Police to investigate Downing Street lockdown parties

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into parties held in No 10 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Officers were looking into "potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations" in Downing Street and Whitehall since 2020, Commissioner Cressida Dick said.
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The police investigation was launched after the Cabinet Office inquiry team, led by civil servant Sue Gray, passed information to the force.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said the Met seemed to have no objection to Ms Gray's report being published before it completed its investigations.

Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60123850

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No 10 parties: police will uncover evidence not in Gray report, say ex-staffers

The police investigation into Downing Street parties is set to uncover evidence which has not yet been submitted to the Sue Gray inquiry, according to former No 10 staffers.

The prime minister’s ex-chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, had previously warned that officials were deeply uncomfortable with handing over some evidence to the inquiry, believing they could face retribution for damaging information.

But one senior Tory with knowledge of the inquiry said the announcement of a criminal inquiry on Tuesday made it a “different ballgame”, adding: “Officials who don’t tell Sue Gray the whole truth will not hold back from the cops.”
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Another senior source who had spoken to the Gray inquiry said there were HR obligations on current civil service staff to speak to the Cabinet Office probe but no such obligations for staff who have left.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/25/no-10-parties-police-will-uncover-evidence-not-in-gray-report-say-ex-staffers

Boris Johnson braced for perilous 48 hours with release of Sue Gray’s report

Boris Johnson is braced for the most perilous 48 hours of his premiership, with exasperated Conservative MPs due to see an official report into Downing Street parties that has now triggered a criminal inquiry.
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Many Tory MPs are awaiting Gray’s findings before deciding whether to add their names to those calling on the 1922 Committee chair, Graham Brady, to trigger a vote of no confidence. One senior MP suggested Tory backbenchers would be likely to come to a “collective decision” when they see how Johnson responds.

“Those colleagues that still have a foot in the real world will recognise that there is no world in which a police investigation is anything but very bad,” they said, adding that in any normal workplace those under investigation would be suspended rather than coming to work as normal.

A former cabinet minister suggested Brady may already have received 40 letters. The threshold for triggering a confidence vote is 54. If it is reached, a vote would be held within days, and if Johnson lost it, his premiership would effectively be over.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/25/boris-johnson-braced-for-perilous-48-hours-with-release-of-sue-grays-report

[The Unmitigated Gall]

1. What a putz.