50 shades of (Sue) Gray

Adam Wagner Tweets: "Sue Gray is in a very difficult position. Previously eg with the Damian Green inquiry she was investigating an MP. Here she is investigating her direct boss (Simon Case) and his boss (Boris Johnston) amongst others including I assume her senior colleagues. It’s almost impossible."

And added:

"One thing that hasn’t really been focused on but is important is that Simon Case was also said to be independent but turned out, not by his own admission, had held his own gathering - and remember just as that was revealed ministers were suggesting he was about to exonerate. There may well be value in the ultimate report but it won’t be properly independent. I have met a lot of senior civil servants in my work and they do have high levels of integrity but there is also an element of Sir Humphreyness. The other difficulty for Gray is that she is not a lawyer but is having to decide whether there is evidence of a criminal offence, in the context of quite difficult and novel Covid laws such that it will be provided to the police. How will she manage that? Ask govt lawyers?"

Johnson ordered the inquiry after revelations regarding the first cheese and wine party emerged. Since then ten more, at least, further events have become known. Gray's remit has expanded to include those.

But Gray has no constitutional remit to investigate, no legal one either. She is invesigating her boss's boss. And Johnson has the power to accept or reject the findings. I know if he were to rehject them, there' be hell to pay, but you can be sure there'll be enough wiggle room for him to limbo through whilst saying nothing serious found, even if there was.

Astonishingly, the Met are holding off their inquiry, hoo, there's a fucking surprise, until Gray completes her investigation. In what other Banana Republic would a jumped up internal investigation trump one by the actual fucking Police?

Did Johnson know about the parties?

Did he think they were all work related events, even with booze and a buffet?

Did he know about the invite?

We do know there was an order for folks in the Cabinet Office to "clean up their phones", this is common or garden perverting the course of justice and punishable by a ten year stretch in Wormwood Scrubs, unless there is another lie that "I changed my phone and lost all my saved data". I mean, Johnsons already used that one in the past even days.

So, the appology was more of a "sorry you thought we did wrong, rather than be an actual recognition by Johnson and JRM that they did make a mistake, or as my Dad would say, take the piss.

In fact not only did they take the piss, they then rubbed our noses in their piss.

Seven days before this party, Johnson stood up in the Commons and said that the whole country knew the rules and the reasons and would obey Common Sense. Sadly, Downing Street is a common sense-free zone. Self-awareness free too.