Politics

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Monday

Katy Balls

What does the Gray report mean for Boris?

14 min listen

The long anticipated Sue Gray report was finally published today albeit lacking significant chucks of detail. Following the report, Boris Johnson made a statement in the Commons. Though he apologised at the beginning, his tone did not seem particularly apologetic, which clearly riled a number of MPs across party lines. 'The discomfort among the Tory benches today was striking'- James Forsyth.But what will be the aftermath of the debate? And can Boris Johnson still come back from this?Listen to the full discussion on Sue Gray's report as Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.

Katy Balls

Johnson faces a mauling from his own MPs

Ahead of the publication of Sue Gray's report into partygate, there had been talk that the police investigation — which meant the most tricky parts of Gray's investigation were left out — would help Boris Johnson by ensuring he got off lightly. However, anyone watching the reaction from MPs to the Prime Minister's statement in the chamber will have been left wondering what the full report would have triggered. While the shortened report meant the Prime Minister was spared embarrassing details coming to light, it did not stop Johnson from facing a mauling from his own side.

Isabel Hardman

Johnson’s defence deteriorates

That Boris Johnson regards the Gray update as an opportunity to come up for air was very clear from his statement on the report in the Commons. The Prime Minister's opening remarks struck what seemed to be a reasonable balance between apologising, offering some operational changes to No. 10 (to show he was taking the report's recommendations for 'learning' seriously) and trying to buoy up Tory MPs with a reminder of what his government was achieving. Brexit, freeports and the comparatively early end to Covid restrictions all came up. He might have been pleased with himself as he commended his statement to the House, but things went downhill after that. The first deterioration in the situation came as Sir Keir Starmer gave one of his best speeches in parliament to date.

Robert Peston

Boris Johnson’s future is now in the hands of the police

The power of Sue Gray's 'update' of her investigation into parties at 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office is as much in what it doesn't say, as what it does. She identifies a staggering 12 gatherings – alleged rule-breaking parties – that took place over 11 months between May 2020 and April 2021 that may have breached the criminal law, the Covid regulations in force at the time. The resonant point about these gatherings is Sue Gray feels she cannot tell us anything about them, because they are being investigated by the Met police. She does not want to prejudice their inquiries.

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May’s pop at Boris

The release of Sue Gray's summary into the No. 10 parties has meant Boris Johnson is up before the Commons this afternoon, to give his reply. In classic Johnson style, he blustered his way through it, claiming it qas an opportunity to rewire the wiring of Whitehall and create a new 'Office of the Prime Minister.' But while Johnson suffered from Sir Keir Starmer's attacks on his integrity, it was Theresa May's intervention which proved to be one of the most wounding.  The former Prime Minister was clearly itching in the House to intervene, removing her mask as soon as she got the nod from Lindsay Hoyle.

Steerpike

Five unanswered questions from Sue Gray’s report

At long last, it's finally here. This afternoon's release of Sue Gray's report into the Downing Street parties marks the end of weeks of speculation as to the contents of the senior civil servant's findings. Gray's investigation was a mere eight pages, much of which focused on the Covid timeline and her report's terms of reference.  Initial reaction is still coming in but it seems that her summary is set to please no one: the belated decision by the Met to open their own investigation prevented Gray from commenting on the most serious potential breaches. This means that Boris-backers are denied the chance to brush off the saga and move on, while his critics are denied the smoking gun they desperately craved.

James Forsyth

The Sue Gray report: what happens next?

It is Tory MPs who hold Boris Johnson’s fate in their hands. The key question now is how do those Tories who said that they were waiting for the Sue Gray report react to this update.  On the one hand, it is clearly not her report. She writes that the police investigation means that ‘it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather.’ On the other, this update is highly critical saying that:  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...

Isabel Hardman

A Graywash? Downing Street party report is merely an ‘update’

Sue Gray’s report on the lockdown partying in Downing Street is short. Just 11 pages. Early on, it makes clear that the police are investigating all but four of them, which makes this an ‘update’. Gray avoids making a judgement on whether the gatherings were a breach of the regulations and guidance in place at the time because of the police inquiry. Instead, her conclusion is that ‘a number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place’ and that the ‘significant learning’ that needs to take place across Government ‘does not need to wait for the police investigation to be concluded’.

The Spectator

Read in full: Sue Gray’s partygate report

Sue Gray's long-awaited investigation into Downing Street parties during lockdown has just been released. Here is the full text: On 8 December 2021 the Prime Minister asked the Cabinet Secretary to carry out an investigation into allegations reported in the media relating to gatherings in No10 Downing Street and the Department for Education during November and December 2020.On 17 December 2021 the Cabinet Secretary recused himself from the investigation as a result of allegations concerning an online quiz held by his private office in the Cabinet Office on 17 December 2020 in 70 Whitehall. It was at this point that I was asked to lead this work.The terms of reference for the investigation were published on 9 December 2021 (Annex A).

Ross Clark

The NHS vaccine mandate was bound to fail

Health Secretary Sajid Javid now looks set to drop his plans to sack unvaccinated NHS staff. It was almost inevitable given the practical difficulties that come with sacking more than 70,000 workers who showed little sign of changing their minds — all while the NHS is desperately trying to catch up with missed treatments following the pandemic. Javid is expected to say that the far milder Omicron variant has changed his calculation: Covid is no longer a threat that would necessitate compulsory vaccination. In reality, his bluff was about to be called.

Steerpike

China’s ‘useful idiots’ keep their honours

Ministers like to talk a good game on China. But, as the Commons witnessed just two weeks ago, all too often there's a very different reality when it comes to calling out Beijing's abuses. After the Foreign Office declined to describe China's atrocities in Xinjiang as 'genocide,' now it's time for the Department for Education to turn the other cheek. For universities minister Michelle Donelan has ducked the chance to call on Britain's seats of learning to cut their ties with apparatchiks of the communist regime.

Katy Balls

Is Boris Johnson out of the woods?

As Downing Street aides prepare to publish Sue Gray's report later today, there is a growing sense amongst Boris Johnson's allies that they are turning a corner after a month of torrid headlines. The government is now trying to move attention to Levelling Up and the situation in Ukraine; the fact that the report into partygate will be redacted when it comes to the most serious suspected breaches of Covid guidelines will help them shift the focus. It means that much of the sting will be taken out of the report. No. 10 plans to use any breathing space as a result to convince MPs the government is focussing on getting on with the day job. Boris Johnson is expected to U-turn on mandatory jabs for NHS staff – a policy loathed by many Tory MPs.

Sam Leith

You can’t really ‘cancel’ anything

'When parents give Maus…to their little kids, I think it's child abuse. I wanna protect my kids!' Who do you imagine this quote is from? Some plaid-clad member of the moral majority at a town hall meeting in Tennessee – where the local board of education in McMinn County recently caused an outcry by removing Art Spiegelman's graphic novel about the Holocaust from the eighth-grade curriculum? Nope. It's a quote from, well, Art Spiegelman – in a 1997 comic he drew depicting a conversation he had with Maurice Sendak. This week he took a rather different view. Interviewed by CNN, he said that in contemplating the school board ruling he had 'moved past total bafflement to trying to be tolerant of people who may possibly not be Nazis… maybe?

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Michael Gove says ‘Christian forgiveness’ is needed over partygate

Andrew Neil is back on our TV screens ('Boris Johnson: Has He Run Out of Road?', Channel 4 this evening). Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the documentary is when he confronts Michael Gove, one of the main advocates of lockdown, over the blood-curdling government posters used last year: 'Look her in the eyes and tell her you never bend the rules.' Now we know, Neil said, that those who commissioned these posters were breaking the rules.  The following exchange then takes place: Thousands of people were taken to the courts for defying the lockdown rules Gove advocated Andrew Neil 'Given what we know now, it was a cavalier approach to lockdown.

Kate Andrews

Sunak and Johnson’s differences have been exposed

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s plan to press on with the new health and social care levy is not a huge surprise. The deal between them last year to get social care reforms over the line boiled down to a simple principle: new spending projects must be fully funded. That remains as important to the Chancellor today as it was back then. With the Prime Minister still opposed to making cuts elsewhere to pay for his plans, the levy, by default, stays with us. As I wrote last week, it was highly unlikely that recent updates to public finance figures – showing lower borrowing and higher tax receipts than expected – would count towards Sunak’s definition of ‘fully funded.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: It is ‘highly likely’ that Russia will invade Ukraine

Liz Truss – It is ‘highly likely’ that Russia will invade Ukraine January may be Eastern Europe’s coldest month, but most Ukrainians are unwilling to accept Vladimir Putin’s gigantic bear hug for comfort. Last week, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss claimed to have seen intelligence suggesting a Russian plan to install a puppet government in Kyiv, and diplomatic efforts have not yet managed to take the chill off the situation. Truss was interviewed by Sophie Raworth, who asked her how likely it was that the situation could escalate: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1487729051271843842?

Keiran Pedley

How bad are the polls for Boris Johnson?

It’s no secret that the polls do not look good for the Prime Minister at the moment. The most recent Ipsos Mori political monitor, released this week, shows that seven in ten Britons are now dissatisfied with the job Boris Johnson is doing. The PM’s numbers now are similar to Theresa May’s just before she left office in 2019, Tony Blair’s in January 2007 and the types of figures registered by Gordon Brown throughout 2008 and 2009. In this context, some six in ten Britons think the Conservatives should change their leader before the next general election (up from 42 per cent last July), including more than one in three Conservative voters. Johnson’s struggles appear to be having a real impact on wider public perceptions of the Conservatives too.

John Keiger

Zemmour, Marion Maréchal and the union of the French right

The news that the highly influential third-generation member of the Le Pen family, Marion Maréchal, will not be backing her aunt Marine for the French presidency is ‘brutal, violent and painful’, in Marine’s words. But beyond its emotional impact on the Le Pen family, for whom politics, betrayal and intrigue have always been of Shakespearean dimensions, this is potentially an earthquake in French politics. For the 32 year old intellectual branch of the family has hinted that she may join Éric Zemmour’s campaign.

Stephen Daisley

The Tories have abandoned the young

Tories who tried to convince Number 10 and Number 11 to delay the hike in National Insurance have had their hopes comprehensively dashed this morning. The Sunday Times carries a joint op-ed by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor which confirms the NI rise is going ahead as planned. Raising tax on workers is estimated to bring in an additional £12bn and will see those on £20,000 paying an extra £89, those on £30,000 stung for £214 and earners on £50,000 forced to hand over a further £464. Higher earners will see sharper increases: £839 on £80,000 and £1,089 on £100,000.