BORIS Johnson’s birthday bash is amongst the No 10 parties being investigated by the police, Sue Gray’s bombshell report reveals today.
Met officers are probing the circumstances around the 19 June 2020 gathering in the Cabinet room, her findings suggest.
The PM is said to have attended the party with wife Carrie and the couple’s interior designer, at which staff sang Happy Birthday and presented him with a cake.
Sue Gray’s report lists 16 gatherings in Downing St and Whitehall, and says 12 of those are being investigated by police.
A heavily watered-down version of the probe tore into “failures of leadership and judgment” inside No10 across a 20-month period.
The civil servant, whose findings were censored by the Met, scolded the booze culture in Downing Street.
But the anti-climactic conclusion of the 12-page report simply stated that “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.”
Mr Johnson spent the morning poring over the findings – that could seal his political career – before it was published this afternoon.
He is due to come to the Commons at around 3.30pm for a statement on the Partygate developments.
In major developments:
- Ms Gray said she interviewed more than 70 people and demanded emails, texts, WhatsApps, and exit logs
- Boris Johnson is set to rally Tory MPs at a meeting this evening
- He will then avoid the fallout by jetting off to Ukraine tomorrow
- Tory MPs were deciding whether to submit letters of no confidence
Crucial findings have been redacted from the report after Scotland Yard demanded Ms Gray leaves out anything that encroaches on their own inquiry.
Dame Cressida Dick took a wrecking ball to the civil service probe by launching her own police investigation into eight parties in Downing Street and Whitehall.
Downing Street has not committed to publish the full findings of the Gray report even once the cops finish, meaning they may never see the light of day.
Veteran Whitehall enforcer Ms Gray has been investigating around 20 parties in Downing Street and Government buildings during lockdown.
They include the “bring your own booze bash” in the Downing St garden, and two No10 parties on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral.
Mr Johnson and senior Downing St staff have been interviewed as part of the process.
The PM has for weeks been urging rebellious Tory MPs to wait for the Gray report before submitting letters of no confidence in his leadership.
He has insisted the findings would exonerate him from any lockdown-rule breaking and “draw a line” under the saga.
But it remains to be seen if the watered-down report is enough to bring would-be mutineers back from the ledge – or whether they’ll hold judgement until the Met probe concludes.
Seven Tory MPs have so far publicly called for Mr Johnson to resign, along with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Publication of the Gray report had been expected to trigger a further cascade of letters, but temperatures now appear to have cooled.
Mr Johnson’s loyalists has been shoring up support with wavering MPs, while the PM has been meeting some personally in his office.
He’s vowed to shake-up his top team in Downing Street and pursue more Conservative policies.
Today he launched a Brexit Freedoms Bill and is planning to publish the long-awaited Levelling Up white paper this week.
