Downing Street party report calls on government ‘leaders’ to take responsibility | International

The deputy secretary of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet Office, Sue Gray, has published this Wednesday her long-awaited final report on the parties in Downing Street during confinement. “Many people will be shocked at the scale of the behavior that took place in the very heart of the Government,” concludes the senior official. “The highest level leaders, both politically and administratively, must take responsibility for this culture [de alcohol y fiestas]”, he points out. That’s as far as the UK’s number two senior body of officials, which has been working on the report for months, has put its full publication on hold pending Scotland Yard’s completion of its own investigation. It was not a disciplinary file, Gray specifies, and therefore it is not in his hands to impose sanctions or suggest a specific response.

After analyzing photos, emails and messages, and questioning many involved, the report is a compendium of facts, accompanied by generic conclusions, which may allow Johnson to slip away again. Gray investigates 16 events in which social distancing rules were allegedly violated. But he is very careful not to name the participants, whose identity is not relevant to the general conclusions, or to show more photos than necessary. Nine, specifically, and Johnson appears in all of them, accompanied in some of them by the Minister of Economy, Rishi Sunak.

Gray tries, through his conclusions, to protect the youngest staff of Downing Street, to avoid that they end up being the scapegoats of a procedure tolerated, and even encouraged, by their superiors: “Some of the behaviors described are inexcusable, but it is important to note that most employees junior they attended these events because their superiors were present, or even directly organized them. I am sure they will have learned their lesson, and although it is a matter that does not concern me, I trust that it will be taken into account when adopting disciplinary measures, ”says Gray.

The report also points to cases of “lack of respect and poor treatment of cleaning and security personnel” in government buildings. “That is unacceptable,” she concludes.

It is, however, some of the details described that draw with much greater precision than the conclusions the degree of nonsense that was experienced those days in Downing Street: “This event lasted several hours”, describes one of the parties, which took place on June 18, 2020. “There was excessive drinking by some people. One, in particular, ended up sick [sick, un término utlizado normalmente para describir a quin acaba vomitando]. There was a minor altercation between two other people present, ”he recounts.

“Some of those working in other areas of the 10 Downing Street building heard very high noise levels, which sounded like a party, in the press office. A cleaner who arrived the next morning saw that there was red wine spilled on the wall and on some boxes of photocopy paper, ”says the report describing another of the parties. The text even indicates how staff were asked to have drunk more than the amount they used to get out the back door of Downing Street.

Boris Johnson has gone to the House of Commons to make a statement on the Gray report. He has once again apologized to Parliament, and “has taken full responsibility for what happened.” But that doesn’t mean he’s contemplating resigning. “Shocked” by everything the report relates, the Prime Minister has insisted that he was not aware, at the time, of everything that was happening in Downing Street. From the first information, Johnson has replaced part of his team, and from “humility”, he has reiterated this Wednesday, “he has learned his lesson”.

The leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer, has again demanded Johnson’s resignation, and has asked the Conservative deputies to stop him, “before he leads this country to disaster”. Gray’s report, Starmer concluded, “is a monument to the arrogance and arrogance of a government that believes there are rules for itself, and rules for the rest of the world,” Starmer said.

Johnson plans to meet throughout the day with the conservative parliamentary group and offer a press conference. Triple pardon: to Parliament, to deputies Tories and to the citizens, with the hope of closing the episode of the festivities. The truth is that the irritation that the scandal of the parties unleashed, when it was known at the beginning of the year, has lowered its tone. Many conservative parliamentarians have curbed their criticism in the face of the urgency of unity demanded by the Ukraine crisis. The fact, furthermore, that the House of Commons Privileges Committee has opened its own investigation into Johnson’s possible contempt (lying to Parliament about the parties) offers the perfect excuse for many Conservative MPs to postpone their decision, and allow the prime minister to remain afloat for the time being.

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