It comes to something when a police investigation into misconduct in No 10 and the danger of war in Europe are seen as helpful developments by supporters of the Prime Minister.
Boris Johnson’s human shield is no longer Sue Gray, but the Metropolitan Police. Gray’s report, used by Downing Street to evade scrutiny about Covid rule breaches and by Conservative MPs to delay moving against the Prime Minister, will soon be published. But her account of the worst transgressions will be redacted, following an edict by the Met commissioner, Cressida Dick.
The police position defies logic and law. First, they maintained there was no need to investigate the parties. Now, they insist their investigation must take precedence over the public interest in the full and prompt publication of the report.
We have laws to prevent interference in investigations and trials, but here they seem irrelevant. The alleged offences are punishable by fixed penalty notices, and are too minor for contempt of court offences to apply. The explanation made by some – that information must not be revealed to suspects – is also absurd given the limited nature of the necessary investigations and the months suspects have had to get their stories straight. Parliament could vote to publish the whole report, but MPs will be reluctant to override the police decision.
That the police are investigating does suggest that the Gray report – if it is ever published in full – will make grim reading. Last week, Dick said the Met would only investigate “where there was little ambiguity around the absence of any reasonable defence”. The belief in Whitehall is that Gray has not only explored the most notorious parties, but gatherings in the Prime Minister’s flat, too.
However bad or bland the redacted report, Downing Street will use this week to try to move on. Senior officials and advisers will leave. Johnson will make an apology of sorts. He will visit Eastern Europe to warn Vladimir Putin against attacking Ukraine. The second anniversary of Brexit will prompt promises to diverge and deregulate. And Michael Gove will launch his levelling-up white paper.
Seasoned Tories sense, for now at least, the moment of maximum danger has passed. They observe that MPs who stand to gain from a change in leader have supported the PM and joined in ring-rounds of wavering colleagues. Without its own preferred candidate, the Right of the party is reluctant to move. Ministers worry about the demons unleashed by bringing down a leader. “Many of the people Boris has lost are the nice guys,” notes one MP. “There isn’t yet the organisation needed to bring him down.”
But if the immediate pressure on Johnson is easing, the reprieve is only likely to be temporary. Even the redacted Gray report could be dangerous enough. The PM’s response – and he is already showing signs of cockiness – will be watched closely by sceptical colleagues. Any further mistakes, obvious lies or revelations about rule-breaking could relight the fire. If Johnson makes it to May unscathed, a poor showing in the local elections might encourage the party to move against him.
MPs have mostly been keen to allow the Prime Minister due process and a fair hearing. From this week, their most popular line – “we must wait for Sue Gray to report” – will no longer hold. The report will either damn the Prime Minister, or it will be perceived as a farce, with the most egregious acts of misconduct expunged and hidden from the public. It will hardly be appropriate for Tories to plead for patience, reserving judgment “until the police complete their investigations”.
The public has decided what it thinks of the matter. A huge majority believe Johnson broke the rules and lied about doing so. Ministers and MPs, who after all know the PM better than the public does, will be expected to say whether they believe he told the truth. Those who insist he is truthful, or hide behind a generalised statement of regret, or blame others, or ask for more time, will be judged harshly.
It is not just that Johnson told Parliament he had been assured “there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”, when we already know he attended parties, witnessed parties and broke the rules himself. In the past several months alone, he also – inadvertently, he insists – misled Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests, about donations for the Downing Street flat renovation. And despite his insistence to the contrary, there are several accounts that say Johnson, or people acting in his name from within No 10, authorised the rescue of animals ahead of humans from Kabul during the Afghan evacuation last year.
Already, loyalists are making fools of themselves and trashing their own reputations in his defence. It would be perverse, some say, to remove a Prime Minister about something as minor as a party, yet they know the real problem is the alleged hypocrisy and dishonesty. Some make light of allegations that the PM is careless with highly classified documents, when such classifications exist to protect the lives of human intelligence sources. Some, perhaps unwittingly, repeat misinformation that can be quickly disproved. “They can’t even tell the truth about a birthday cake,” laments a critical MP. And some insist this is all a plot instigated by the media, Labour or Remainers.
It is no such thing, of course. For all the complexity of political calculation, claim and counter-claim, we are dealing with remarkably simple ethical questions. Did the Prime Minister break the rules he imposed on everybody else? Did he lie about doing so? And does he think lying to the public and to Parliament is of no consequence?
In private, few Conservative MPs believe their leader. This is unsurprising, for what he says is scarcely believable. But Johnson judges, in common with previous scandals he has survived, he can play for time and ride out the controversy. If his party allows him to do so, the Tories will invite upon themselves public disdain and eventual defeat. To believe you can lie to the public and get away with it is, to borrow a phrase, nothing more than rhubarb, an inverted pyramid of piffle.
