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OUTRAGE AT POLICE OVER No10 PROBE SHAMBLES

As Boris is finally set to be handed heavily censored Partygate dossier...

By Jason Groves and Rebecca Camber

CRESSIDA Dick was under fire last night for a ‘farcical’ intervention in the Partygate row that risks leaving the Government in limbo for months.

In a highly controversial move, the Metropolitan Police yesterday admitted it had asked for only ‘minimal references’ to the No10 ‘parties’ at the centre of the row to be in Sue Gray’s report.

It sparked fears that the Whitehall ethics chief’s highly anticipated document will be dramatically redacted and watered down when it is finally published – possibly as soon as Monday.

One source said Met Commissioner Dame Cressida had ‘stuffed it up’ by announcing a criminal inquiry just days before Miss Gray’s report was due to be published.

Whitehall sources warned it could leave the Government – and the country – in limbo, with Boris Johnson unable to draw a line under the affair, ‘reset’ his Government and move on.

Last night, Downing Street was braced to receive a copy of the

report – in heavily redacted form – ‘shortly’. While there is no definite timetable, this is likely to mean no 10 getting the dossier this weekend and publishing it early next week.

But after the Met’s intervention yesterday, the report is likely to contain only scant detail of the most controversial events in the Partygate affair.

While this risks the report being branded a ‘whitewash’, there are also concerns that it will paralyse downing Street, with senior officials facing the uncertainty of potential fines and dismissal for involvement in alleged lockdown-busting parties.

‘Everyone just wants this report out so that we can address what happened and move on,’ one source said. ‘It is very difficult to do that when we have this huge thing hanging over us. It is very frustrating.’

The row erupted yesterday morning when Scotland Yard released a statement confirming it had asked for Miss Gray’s published report to make only ‘minimal references’ to the key events the force is now investigating.

That led to a furious backlash, with critics complaining that the Met was ‘usurping its position’ and preventing the public from getting closure on the affair.

Facing criticism from all sides, the Met issued a second statement late last night saying it had ‘not delayed this report and the timing of its release is a matter for the cabinet office inquiry team’. the force also insisted its inquiry would be conducted ‘promptly, fairly and proportionately’.

Tory MP Sir Roger Gale described the police intervention as ‘a farce’, adding: ‘Unless there is a legal barrier to Sue Gray publishing her report, then I believe that it should be published now and in full.’

Senior legal figures also questioned the Met’s suggestion that the release of Miss Gray’s inquiry could ‘prejudice’ the criminal investigation. Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, said the move seemed ‘disproportionate’ in the face of ‘very powerful’ public interest in the report’s swift publication.

The Met’s position was further weakened last night after the police acknowledged that the inquiry – forecast to cost as much as £1million – was looking only at potential covid breaches dealt with by fixed-penalty notices, typically of £100.

Former tory leader Sir Iain duncan Smith said: ‘I’m puzzled why the police at first said they wouldn’t look at this, and then they have now chosen to do so.

‘It’s not a criminal case at all (or) worth all the man hours that it is taking up.’ the row came as:

■ The police revealed that suspects would be asked to give evidence in writing, undermining claims that the PM could face an interview under caution;

■ The Met warned it would consider taking offenders to court if they refused to pay fines handed out by officers;

■ Opposition politicians made extraordinary claims of a ‘stitch-up’, saying the police action appeared to be designed to help the PM avoid a leadership challenge;

■ Downing Street risked angering tory MPs by playing down hopes of delay to the planned hike in national insurance;

■ Mr Johnson prepared for talks with Vladimir Putin next week in which he will warn the Russian president he faces a heavy price if he invades Ukraine;

■ The PM was said to have told wavering MPs he is ready to scrap plans to ban junk food ads in return for their support.

Commander catherine Roper, who leads the Met’s central Specialist crime command, last night dismissed speculation that detectives were investigating more serious offences than simple breaches of covid regulations. ‘the offences under investigation, where proven, would normally result in the issuing of a fixed-penalty notice; accordingly our investigative actions will be proportionate to the nature of these offences,’ she said.

The ‘matter will be considered closed’ if offenders paid their fines, she added, but if they failed to pay, the Met will consider taking them to court.

The publication of Miss Gray’s report had been seen as a possible trigger for mutinous tory MPs to try to force a leadership challenge. Several have said privately that they plan to submit letters of no confidence in Mr Johnson unless he is cleared by the report.

The delay potentially buys more time for the PM and his allies to rebuild support within the parliamentary party. But it also

‘It should be published now and in full’

scuppers plans for a government ‘reset’ designed to reassure the country that the PM is back on track following a string of revelations that have brought his poll ratings to a record low.

Downing Street denied Labour claims that the Government is ‘paralysed’ by the affair.

But ministers say the massive distraction caused by Miss Gray’s inquiry had made it difficult to get decisions out of No10. Key meetings, including a crunch summit between the PM and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, have also been delayed.

The Met yesterday moved to clarify its position after the Mail revealed that Whitehall officials blamed the announcement of the police probe for delays to Miss Gray’s report. Scotland Yard said: ‘For the events the Met is investigating, we asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report. The Met did not ask for any limitations on other events in the report, or for the report to be delayed, but we have had ongoing contact with the Cabinet Office, including on the content of the report, to avoid any prejudice to our investigation.’

Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope accused the Met of ‘usurping its position by seeking to interfere in the affairs of state’. In the Commons, he said: ‘There is no reason for the Metropolitan Police to be able to require Sue Gray not to issue her report in an unamended way for the benefit of the Prime Minister who ordered that report, and for this House, which is eager to see that report.’

HOW on earth has it come to this? The heart of government paralysed for weeks, if not months, as police crawl over Downing Street hunting for evidence of illicit cheese and wine parties.

The rest of the world was already looking on in bemused wonder at our baffling lack of perspective.

Yesterday the situation was made infinitely worse.

Police investigating ‘Partygate’ effectively blocked full publication of mandarin Sue Gray’s Cabinet Office inquiry into the affair until they have finished their deliberations.

So instead of being able to draw a line and move on, British politics is to be kept in suspended animation indefinitely. This sorry saga that could and should have been dealt with by the Gray inquiry has morphed into a grotesque perversion of natural justice and common sense.

Meanwhile, small matters like the imminent threat of war in Europe and cost of living crisis are thrust on to the back burner, as No 10 staff

consult lawyers, prepare statements and look for new jobs in order to escape the madhouse. What a complete shambles!

By pre-emptively referring her inquiry findings to the Metropolitan Police, Sue Gray has passed the buck. She could easily have published her report in full and left the police to decide for themselves if laws had been broken. Sadly, she seems to have been unwilling to take that responsibility.

Now Met Commissioner Cressida Dick is on the case, who knows where it will end up. If experience is anything to go by, down a blind alley at an eye-watering cost in time and resources.

Why she wasn’t sacked years ago for her own many failings is one of the great mysteries of our time. Her reputation for competence is roughly on a par with the hapless Frank Spencer, of Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em fame.

Yet here she is, passing judgment on the Prime Minister and his staff over matters that may be politically incendiary but in strict legal terms are trivial.

With risible pomposity Commissioner Dick says her officers will go ‘where the evidence takes them’, as if they were investigating some major criminal conspiracy.

Yet the Yard has confirmed that it is not looking at anything more than basic Covid breaches, which usually carry a fixed £100 penalty.

They are misdemeanours at the very bottom of the scale; non-recordable summary offences akin to parking violations. So why are the police shelling out an estimated £1million they can ill afford to investigate them?

The inquiry is already showing inconsistencies. At first, Dick said there was no need to delay publication of the Gray report on her account.

By yesterday, she had changed tack. Sue Gray is now being warned not to publish the report in full.

In essence, she has been given permission to release inconsequential material, but to make only ‘minimal reference’ to any of the matters under investigation.

What would be the earthly point of that? The country needs to see the whole report in its proper context, not some half-baked, redacted version. What’s more we need it now.

Placing it under a sub-judice blanket is a ludicrous over-reaction. But it’s depressingly predictable.

Remember the VIP paedophile travesty and the millions Commissioner Dick poured down the drain in failed prosecutions of journalists? Here we go again.

After all, what are we talking about here? Dozens of mainly young, hard-working civil servants and advisers sharing food and drink in a work setting. Some scandal.

Yes, they appear to have overstepped the mark and should have been better supervised. People were hurt and offended, but this is not some malign conspiracy.

Dripping with fake emotion, Sir Keir Starmer (no stranger to glaring lockdown breaches himself) loves to claim that Downing Street staff were whooping it up, while ordinary folk couldn’t visit dying relatives in care homes, attend funerals and so on. It is a bogus comparison and he knows it. There is simply no equivalence.

Hundreds of people work in Downing Street, and were straining every sinew for up to 16 hours a day during lockdown to help combat the worst global pandemic in living memory.

Many of them would also have been unable to see close relatives for months on end and almost certainly will have suffered family tragedy themselves, including bereavements.

Does Sir Keir think they were crashing into locked-down care homes with party hats and streamers? Or inviting 100 people to bring their own bottle to a funeral reception? Of course not.

There isn’t the slightest evidence these public servants weren’t observing Covid rules outside Downing Street. And even inside, the Mail has no doubt they thought their gatherings were permissible within a work ‘bubble’.

Far more reprehensible was the behaviour of Dominic Cummings, the biggest lockdown hypocrite of them all.

His journey from London to Durham and then Barnard Castle was not only in flagrant breach of the then restrictions, but he shamelessly lied about his reasons for being there.

Yet he is now slinging mud at his former colleagues and desperately trying to destroy his former boss. He’s like a Mafioso pursuing a blood vendetta.

So let’s look at where the police might take this inquiry. Anything staff told Sue Gray, while available to detectives, carries little legal force as it was said during an internal inquiry, not a criminal one.

They could interview dozens of staff members under caution about every alleged party and possibly even ask for laptop and mobile phone data.

But for such minor offences that would be a grotesque waste of time and money — as well as a blatant abuse of power. While Partygate has profound political implications, the worst punishment anyone deemed to have breached the rules will get is a fixed penalty notice. Where is the sense of proportion? And before throwing stones at Downing Street, Commissioner Dick might first look inside her own rickety glass house.

The cruel hounding of elderly public servants on trumped up paedophile charges, the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by one of her officers, the sharing of pictures of murder victims on sick WhatsApp groups all suggest she should be paying attention to the troubling culture closer to home. Then there is the terrifyingly low clear-up rate for serious crime in the Met area, a blade epidemic, a sinister underbelly of terrorism and much else. Instead of political posturing, she should get back to some grass-roots policing.

The biggest question, of course, is where all this leaves Boris Johnson. There has been speculation that Sue Gray has found fresh evidence that he may have knowingly broken the rules, which is why she called in the Yard.

If that’s true, he’s in trouble. But is it? Who knows?

Almost any other finding would be of little importance. Modest fines for a few obscure civil servants is hardly likely to create a political earthquake.

But we won’t now know the truth for months, leaving the Government under a cloud when it should be devoting all its energies to our post-Covid recovery.

It’s almost exactly 50 years since the great reforming Commissioner and Normandy veteran Sir Robert Mark took over at the Yard, cleaned out the dead wood, ended the institutionalised corruption and laid the foundations of modern policing.

He must be spinning in his grave like a centrifuge at the way his legacy is being mocked.

If she wants to retrieve any shred of credibility, Commissioner Dick should sanction the full publication of the Gray report immediately. The country needs to see all the facts, achieve closure — and move on. Not in three months’ time, or even three weeks. Now!

Stop the political posturing, Commissioner Dick, and concentrate on proper policing

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