Met Police insiders insisted on Thursday that “partygate” was too far down the track for its outcome to be influenced, and that too many officers are already involved.
But the source accepted that Dame Cressida’s resignation will put “more pressure” on the officers in day-to-day charge of the case over whether Mr Johnson, as well as his wife Carrie and senior aides, receive fixed penalty notices for breaking the Government’s own Covid lockdown rules.
“There are loads of people involved in the investigation,” said the source. “The idea that the commissioner could then influence an investigation to the extent that it brings about a corrupt and improper outcome is just fanciful. It is just beyond belief. It is fanciful.”
Johnson ‘must have no role’ in choosing successor
Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “Boris Johnson must have no role in choosing Cressida Dick’s successor to lead the Met. A man under criminal investigation by the Met should not be able to choose who’s in charge of it.”
Dame Cressida had announced the launch of a criminal inquiry into parties and gatherings in Downing Street a little over a fortnight ago, on Jan 25. For months she had resisted a clamour to do so, but the delivery of Sue Gray’s report into alleged illegal activities forced the commissioner’s hand. Here was evidence of possible law-breaking that could not be ignored.
But the Met’s handling of the announcement was catastrophic. The Gray report was suppressed as a consequence, Scotland Yard requesting that “minimal reference” be made to 12 possibly criminal events in anything published by the senior civil servant.
The result was an outcry that the report had been kicked into the long grass, buying the beleaguered prime minister valuable time.