Jan. 31, 2022, 9:30 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:30 a.m. ET
Downing Street suffers from a culture of “excessive” workplace drinking that led to social gatherings during pandemic lockdowns, according to a highly anticipated report from a British government investigation released on Monday.
The document described leadership failures in the office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, though it did not directly implicate Mr. Johnson in wrongdoing, leaving that judgment to a separate police investigation. That may give him some political breathing room, but it is unlikely to dispel the cloud of what has become a career-threatening scandal.
The report, by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, was scrubbed of its most potentially damaging findings at the request of London’s Metropolitan Police, which launched their own investigation of the lockdown breaches last week. So abridged was the document released on Monday that the Cabinet Office characterized it as an “update” of Ms. Gray’s investigation rather than as a report.
Still, even in its redacted form, the report painted a troubling portrait of a work culture at Downing Street, where staff members held alcohol-fueled gatherings with colleagues during a period when the government was urging the public to avoid socializing, even with close friends and relatives. Accusations of double standards have engulfed Mr. Johnson’s government and threatened his grip on power.
“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,” Ms. Gray said in one of her general findings.
“There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No. 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times,” she continued. “Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place. Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did.”
Ms. Gray took particular aim at the regular drinking at these events. “The excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time,” she wrote, adding that government agencies needed “a clear and robust policy in place covering the consumption of alcohol in the workplace.”
The prime minister had shored up his position somewhat in recent days, and the findings released on Monday did not immediately appear to pose a fresh threat to him. But at a minimum, they raised hard questions about the operation Mr. Johnson and his senior aides have put together at Downing Street.
Mr. Johnson, who addressed Parliament about the report on Monday, has been scrambling to avoid a vote of no-confidence in his leadership by Conservative lawmakers. Such a vote would be called if 54 members submit confidential letters demanding it. That threshold has not yet been met, and it was unlikely that the details released Monday would lead to a flood of new dissidents.
Indeed, Downing Street moved swiftly to change the subject. Mr. Johnson, eager to drape himself in a statesman’s mantle, scheduled a phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday to discuss the mounting tensions in Ukraine. He will visit the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Tuesday.
Britain has been staking out a more assertive policy on Ukraine in recent weeks. But Mr. Johnson has been forced to cede much of the spotlight to his foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and defense secretary, Ben Wallace, while he grappled with the mutiny inside his Conservative Party over the party scandal.
Later in the week, the government will release a report on its “leveling up” program, the blueprint to bolster economically blighted parts of the country’s north, which is the centerpiece of its legislative agenda.
Mr. Johnson hopes to mollify Conservative lawmakers, many of whom were swept into Parliament in 2019 on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s “Get Brexit done” campaign slogan but who have grown disillusioned with him, particularly in the wake of disclosures about pandemic socializing at Downing Street.
Jan. 31, 2022, 11:02 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 11:02 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Boris Johnson is now being pressed by his own party for details on how he plans to shake up the Downing Street operation. The expectation is that heads will roll, but Johnson offers no details.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:58 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:58 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Andrew Mitchell, a senior Conservative lawmaker, says he no longer supports Boris Johnson.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:57 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:57 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Ian Blackford, the leader of the Scottish National Party in Westminster, causes a dispute by saying that Boris Johnson misled Parliament, breaking a rule that lawmakers do not accuse one another of lying. Mr. Blackford is ordered out.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:51 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:51 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Former Prime Minister Theresa May asks Boris Johnson whether Downing Street did not think the rules applied to them. Johnson deflects the question.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:50 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:50 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Boris Johnson says that under his leadership, Britain is standing up to aggression in Ukraine by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:45 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:45 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Keir Starmer’s closing pitch is to Tory lawmakers: “They know better than anyone how unsuitable he is for high office,” he says of Boris Johnson.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:45 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:45 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Keir Starmer quotes the Conservative icon Margaret Thatcher on the importance of a government’s upholding the rule of law.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:44 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:44 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
“By routinely breaking the rules,” Keir Starmer says of Boris Johnson, “the prime minister has taken us all for fools.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:42 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:42 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
The Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, sums up the danger for Boris Johnson: “There is no doubt that the prime minister himself is subject to criminal investigation.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:41 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:41 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Boris Johnson says: “I want to say to the people of this country: I know what the issue is. It is whether this government can be trusted to deliver, and I say yes, we can be trusted.” After apologizing, he moves swiftly on from his role to internal changes in Downing Street, promising a new office of the prime minister with a top civil servant in charge.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:38 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:38 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
A defiant performance from Johnson, after a perfunctory show of contrition.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:38 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:38 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
“I get it, and I will fix it,” Boris Johnson says, before plunging into a campaign-like list of his government’s achievements.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:35 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:35 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Boris Johnson promises a reform of Downing Street in response to Sue Gray’s report.
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:23 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:23 a.m. ET
Saskia Solomon
reporting from London
Paula Langton, 58, from York, said she was upset by the revelations. “Everyone I know has been adhering to the rules,” she said. “I’ve had Covid twice now. I’ve had family and friends who’ve lost people. They couldn’t go to funerals or weddings.”
“It’s just been really weird to hear these things that have been going on when people couldn’t visit elderly relatives in hospital,” she added. “It’s an absolute farce.”
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Jan. 31, 2022, 10:14 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 10:14 a.m. ET
Saskia Solomon
reporting from London
Atom Bebo, 38, a marketeer from London, said he wasn’t surprised by the report. “It’s further confirmed my suspicions of the government in general. In the past decade or so, the government has been quite wishy-washy with their policies and haven’t been keeping to their word. And their policies are instigated not by what the population needs, but by internal party politics.” He added, “I think the government is hoping that they can move on and that the public is fed up.”
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Jan. 31, 2022, 9:59 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:59 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Early take: Sue Gray’s redacted “update” is critical enough to taint Boris Johnson’s government but is short of the evidence probably needed to prompt a no-confidence vote in him. That seems to leave things in limbo.
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:45 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:45 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Adam Wagner, a lawyer and coronavirus law expert, offered this assessment: “The most important new information in the report is that the police are investigating all of the gatherings she was investigating except four,” he wrote on Twitter. “So this confirms that the police are investigating the Prime Minister’s birthday gathering, the event he attended on 20 May 2020 in the Downing St garden, but not the Christmas Quiz which the PM compered.”
So this confirms that the police are investigating the Prime Minister’s birthday gathering, the event he attended on 20 May 2020 in the Downing St garden, but not the Christmas Quiz which the PM compered
— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 31, 2022
The British government on Monday published a long-awaited report into parties held at Downing Street in 2020 in violation of Covid lockdown rules.
The highly critical 12-page document was published online an hour before Prime Minister Boris Johnson was scheduled to address lawmakers in Parliament.
“A number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did,” Sue Gray, the civil servant who led the inquiry, said in the report’s conclusion.
Ms. Gray said that law enforcement authorities would have to assess whether Downing Street employees had broken the law. But she wrote repeatedly that the gatherings should not have taken place.
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:40 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:40 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Sue Gray signals that she’s unhappy with the redactions: “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 analyzing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:35 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:35 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Lots of attention on this nugget: The police are investigating a party in the Downing Street apartment on Nov. 13, 2020. That is the day Boris Johnson dismissed his chief adviser and current nemesis, Dominic Cummings.
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:34 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:34 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
“Some staff wanted to raise concerns about behaviours they witnessed at work but at times felt unable to do so,” the report says.
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:29 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:29 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
“The whole of the country rose to the challenge,” the report says. “Ministers, special advisers and the Civil Service, of which I am proud to be a part, were a key and dedicated part of that national effort. However, as I have noted, a number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did. There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across government. This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:29 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:29 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
The report was published on the U.K. government’s website. It says that “when the government was asking citizens to accept far-reaching restrictions on their lives, some of the behavior surrounding these gatherings is difficult to justify.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:18 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 9:18 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to address the entire Conservative parliamentary party at 6:30 p.m. London time (1:30 p.m. Eastern). He’ll be looking to shore up his support.
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:46 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:46 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
A tantalizing question: Does a full version of the Sue Gray report exist? The Cabinet Office said it had sent an “update” on Ms. Gray’s work to Mr. Johnson, avoiding the word report. And Downing Street has not committed to publishing Ms. Gray’s fuller findings even when the police inquiry is complete. If Ms. Gray fully deleted the parts that the police had asked to be omitted, an unredacted version would not exist. But the Cabinet Office’s language hints that a full report lives on somewhere in her laptop.
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:15 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:15 a.m. ET
Elian Peltier
reporting from London
The first reactions from opposition lawmakers are coming in. Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said on Twitter: “The fact that Number 10 is backpedaling on ever releasing the whole Sue Gray report is as disgraceful as it is predictable.”
The fact that Number 10 is backpedaling on *ever* releasing the whole Sue Gray report is as disgraceful as it is predictable. This whole shambolic and dishonest government must be brought down.
— Ed Davey MP ? ?? ?? (@EdwardJDavey) January 31, 2022
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:07 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:07 a.m. ET
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For weeks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s political survival looked very much in doubt, his party in revolt and the public angered over disclosures about parties at Downing Street that violated lockdown rules.
But last week, Mr. Johnson appeared to have won a reprieve — aided, paradoxically, by the British police opening an investigation of the allegations.
The police confirmed they had asked for critical details to be withheld from the report that was delivered on Monday. By scrubbing the most incriminating material, the report, compiled by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, could give Mr. Johnson a chance to regroup rather than face a crippling no-confidence vote.
The development outraged opposition leaders and other critics. Some accused the police of an ill-timed intervention that allowed Mr. Johnson to escape judgment for flouting the rules he had imposed on others, as well as for dissembling about it afterward.
“Britain faces huge challenges as we emerge from the pandemic and it is offensive that the government’s sole focus is on cleaning up after themselves,” said the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer.
Still, Mr. Johnson faces a political landscape strewn with land mines. The Gray report could yet be damaging, even in a redacted form. And the police could impose fines on several people for breaching lockdown restrictions, including the prime minister himself.
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:00 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 8:00 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Downing Street’s refusal to commit to releasing the full Gray report even after the police investigation is completed sets up a potential flashpoint down the road. Opposition parties and other critics would call it a “coverup.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:46 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:46 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Downing Street’s announcement that Boris Johnson would call President Putin, and then visit Ukraine, is calculated to shift public attention quickly from the parties scandal to Mr. Johnson’s role as a statesman.
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:45 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:45 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Boris Johnson is expected to speak to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by phone later today and to visit Ukraine on Tuesday.
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With years of experience in the higher reaches of Britain’s civil service, including overseeing government ethics investigations, Sue Gray has been called the most powerful person Britons had never heard of.
No one is saying that anymore. Ms. Gray is at the center of attention in British politics after issuing a report on Monday into parties held at Downing Street in 2020, in violation of the government’s own Covid lockdown rules. The findings could topple Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
After a lifetime toiling in anonymity, it is an awkward position for Ms. Gray, who now finds herself famous enough to be the subject of memes, poems and YouTube videos.
Ms. Gray is experienced in solving thorny problems and has a reputation as a steely and skillful fixer. She has spent most of her career in government service although at one point she took a break to run a pub in Northern Ireland with her husband, Bill Conlon, a country singer.
Later Ms. Gray worked closely with Gus O’Donnell, a former head of the civil service. Because of the power of his position, as well as his initials, he was nicknamed “God” and, perhaps inevitably, Ms. Gray was known as “baby God.”
One former minister, David Laws, recalled in his memoirs being told by Oliver Letwin, a fellow minister, that it had taken him two years to realize who really ran Britain. According to this account, Mr. Letwin concluded that it was “a lady called Sue Gray,” adding that “unless she agrees, things just don’t happen.”
Experts have said that Ms. Gray is in an unenviable position for a member of a division that prides itself on its political neutrality. She had to produce a report that is seen as credible, while knowing at the same time that her findings could determine whether enough Conservative lawmakers write formal letters of protest to trigger a no-confidence vote in Mr. Johnson.
Jill Rutter, a senior research fellow at U.K. in a Changing Europe, a research institute, said before the report was released: “She won’t want to open the civil service to the charge that they put a bullet through the prime minister’s forehead, because that would be very bad for our system of government.”
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:29 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:29 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Sue Gray spoke to Boris Johnson on Sunday and discussed logistics for handing over her report but did not go into detail on her findings, Downing Street said. It said it had not given any commitment to publish parts of the report that were redacted at the request of the police, even once their investigations are concluded.
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:21 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:21 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Boris Johnson is now expected to address Parliament around 3:30 p.m. London time (10:30 a.m. Eastern).
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:13 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 7:13 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
reporting from London
Note that the Cabinet Office said Sue Gray had provided an “update” of her investigations to the prime minister, not the whole report. Confirms that much of it will be redacted because of ongoing police inquiry.
Jan. 31, 2022, 6:54 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 6:54 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
reporting from London
Boris Johnson is studying the report ahead of its publication, which is expected soon. He is then expected to make a statement to Parliament this afternoon.
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The pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been building for months over a series of reports about parties held by members of his staff in apparent violation of his government’s own coronavirus restrictions in 2020.
The prime minister said he had been assured that all pandemic rules were followed, implying that no gatherings had been held in Downing Street, and expressed anger when a video surfaced of a mock news conference during which his former spokeswoman joked about parties.
Mr. Johnson then had to admit having attended a gathering in a garden at Downing Street, where the prime minister lives and works, in May 2020 to which 100 people were invited and urged to “bring your own booze.” At that time, official restrictions prohibited socializing with more than one other person, even outside, in almost all circumstances.
He said that he had stayed 25 minutes and that he regretted not ending the gathering of several dozen people who were eating and drinking. He insisted that he had thought he was attending a work event.
The prime minister suffered another damaging blow after reports emerged that staff members had used a suitcase to bring alcohol from a nearby store into Downing Street on the evening before the funeral of Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Mr. Johnson did not attend the gathering, and later apologized for two parties that took place at Downing Street that evening.
At one event, a disco was set up in the basement, and the swing of Mr. Johnson’s toddler son was broken as staff members drank into the early hours, according to news reports.
Then, last week, the broadcaster ITV reported that Mr. Johnson had a 30-person surprise birthday lunch in Downing Street’s cabinet room in June 2020. His office told ITV that he had spent “less than 10 minutes” at a brief gathering organized by the staff, and one loyalist came to Mr. Johnson’s defense.
“He was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake,” said Conor Burns, a minister and ally of Mr. Johnson.
On Jan. 25, the British police said they had opened an investigation into “a number of events” at Downing Street and other government offices during lockdowns, “in relation to potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations.”
The investigation was prompted by information turned over by the inquiry led by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, whose investigation into parties that might have breached lockdown rules was delivered to Mr. Johnson on Monday.
Jan. 31, 2022, 6:23 a.m. ET
Jan. 31, 2022, 6:23 a.m. ET
A highly anticipated British government investigation into claims of lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street was made public on Monday, bringing to a head a scandal that has threatened the political future of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The report comes at a critical moment for Mr. Johnson, who is also the subject of a separate inquiry by the Metropolitan Police into rule breaking at Downing Street during pandemic lockdowns over the past two years and is fighting for his political survival.
Although its findings could inflict further damage on Mr. Johnson, the report was expected to be heavily redacted after the police confirmed last week that they had asked for critical details to be withheld to avoid prejudicing their own inquiry. A spokesperson for Mr. Johnson’s cabinet confirmed that he had received “an update” on the investigation, signaling that much of the report was redacted.
The report is expected to be published later on Monday. Mr. Johnson was studying the report and was expected to make a statement to Parliament in the afternoon.
Still, the details in the report, prepared by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, could prompt Conservative Party lawmakers to trigger a no-confidence vote that could eject Mr. Johnson from power. That, in turn, raises the extraordinary prospect of the prime minister being forced out a little more than two years after winning a landslide election victory for his party in December 2019.
Since the scandal broke late last year, the Conservative Party’s poll ratings have plummeted as voters reacted furiously to reported breaches of strict coronavirus rules by the people who made them. At the time of some of the gatherings in Downing Street and other government offices, people in England were prevented from holding family gatherings or even saying their final farewells to dying relatives.
Mr. Johnson’s position is also vulnerable because he is accused of lying to Parliament about what he knew, something that is normally considered a resigning matter.
To trigger a no-confidence vote in Mr. Johnson, 54 Conservative members of Parliament must write a formal protest letter to one of their senior colleagues, and the secretive nature of the process means that only a few people will know how many letters have been submitted until the threshold is reached. The prime minister would then need the support of at least half of his own lawmakers to survive a vote.
So far, only a handful of Conservative lawmakers have said publicly that they have written letters demanding a no-confidence motion in Mr. Johnson.
But many Conservative lawmakers appeared to be waiting to see Ms. Gray’s report’s findings before deciding whether to try to bring Mr. Johnson’s eventful premiership to an end.
Initially, Mr. Johnson asked Simon Case, the head of the civil service, to investigate the accusations about the parties that at that stage mainly involved Mr. Johnson’s staff members. But to his embarrassment, Mr. Case had to recuse himself when it emerged that one event had taken place in his office.
Ms. Gray then took over, only to find herself investigating not just the conduct of officials but also of the prime minister.
The crisis worsened on Tuesday for Mr. Johnson when the Metropolitan Police said that based on information Ms. Gray had uncovered and shared with them, it would launch an investigation into parties at Downing Street.
The police had long resisted calls for their involvement, despite calls from opposition politicians, so the announcement from Cressida Dick, the London Metropolitan Police commissioner, suggested that serious questions had been raised by Ms. Gray’s inquiry.
But after the police asked for some details to be scrubbed from the report because of their own investigation, critics accused them of making an ill-timed intervention that could allow Mr. Johnson to escape judgment for flouting rules that he had imposed on others.