STEPHEN GLOVER: Sue Gray should have ignored the Met Police

February 1, 2022

STEPHEN GLOVER: Sue Gray should have ignored the Met Police and delivered us from purgatory. Instead she just hoisted the white flag over partygate

Tough, uncompromising, rigorous, nobody’s fool – these were some of the generous plaudits afforded the senior civil servant, Sue Gray, when she was asked by the Prime Minister to undertake an inquiry into parties in Downing Street.

Above all other people in Whitehall, it was said, here was a woman who could be relied upon to tell us the unvarnished truth. And, indeed, she had previously brought to a premature end the careers of three Cabinet ministers by her damning verdicts.

Yet the much-heralded document which Sue Gray finally released yesterday was by her own admission not ‘a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather’. Not a proper report at all, then.

Without adducing any significant proof, she condemned the drinking culture of No 10, and by implication the Prime Minister who had presided over it, whilst failing to unveil the evidence that had enabled her to come to this judgment.

This was tantamount to our hearing snippets of a judge’s concluding remarks at the end of a trial without having heard the details of the case. It is not how justice is supposed to be done.

What a defective report! By raising so many questions, and offering precious few answers, it severely wounded the Prime Minister without quite finishing him off. He, and No 10, are left in a state of limbo.

Even more important, this country, which is crying out for a firm and stable government, is now in a state of suspension. With crises looming at home and abroad, it feels as though the ship of State is drifting on the wide open sea with both engines emitting gusts of black smoke, and the captain partly incapacitated.

The reason offered for this unsatisfactory state of affairs is that the Metropolitan Police told Ms Gray last week that there should be ‘minimal reference’ in her report to the gatherings which they have begun to investigate in a process which could take weeks, if not months.

You might as well tell a proud Leo Tolstoy, as he handed over his manuscript of War And Peace to his publisher, to cut out any mention of battles, and steer around the subject of peace.

Out of 16 parties alleged to have taken place in No 10 or Whitehall during lockdown, Scotland Yard is examining whether 12 were in some way illegal. This did not leave much for Sue Gray to get her teeth into.

The Met is gravely at fault for effectively seizing control of her report on the eve of publication. Two months have passed since allegations of parties in No 10 started multiplying. The police had every opportunity to mount their own inquiry at an earlier stage.

They declined to do so on the grounds that they don’t concern themselves with alleged violations of Covid rules ‘retrospectively’. It was only when they began to have what they considered strong grounds for an investigation – presumably tipped off by Ms Gray – that they finally lumbered into action.

So, yes, Scotland Yard, and the error-prone Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, have a great deal to answer for. However, I don’t believe that we should pin all the blame on them

So, yes, Scotland Yard, and the error-prone Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, have a great deal to answer for. However, I don’t believe that we should pin all the blame on them.

Isn’t the supposed hot-shot, high-flying civil servant Sue Gray equally at fault, possibly more so, for failing to produce a report which considered all the evidence and arrived at a reasoned conclusion?

And yet no leading politician, whether it be Boris Johnson or Sir Keir Starmer or Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, can open his mouth without showering undeserved praise on the civil servant.

The bitter truth is that she did conscientiously amass a welter of evidence after being put in charge of the inquiry. The PM’s first choice, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, had to duck out on December 17 when it was alleged he had hosted his own Whitehall shindig.

And yet no leading politician, whether it be Boris Johnson or Sir Keir Starmer or Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey (pictured), can open his mouth without showering undeserved praise on the civil servant

Supported by a small team of civil servants, Ms Gray reportedly interviewed over 70 people who work in and around No 10, possibly including Boris Johnson. She trawled through WhatsApp messages and entry logs, and sifted through other digital evidence. Hundreds of photos and documents have been passed to the Met.

In fact, her inquiry seems to have been more thorough than what the Metropolitan Police have in mind, if reports that they are intending only to email fixed penalty notices to suspected miscreants are true.

Sue Gray had been asked by the Prime Minister for a full report. Why, then, did she so readily hoist the white flag when the Met asked her to step aside?

The argument that her findings might prejudice the Met’s investigation is surely fallacious. The police will come to their own conclusions, after making their own inquiries. If those issued with fixed penalty notices want to challenge the fine, they will go before a magistrate, not a jury.

So if Sue Gray’s report had been published in an unexpurgated form as was intended, and as the Prime Minister promised, no one would have been influenced in such a way as to cause justice to be denied.

Sue Gray had been asked by the Prime Minister for a full report. Why, then, did she so readily hoist the white flag when the Met asked her to step aside?

The Met’s conditions were utterly unreasonable, and Ms Gray should have politely ignored them. There was nothing the police could have done if she had. They could hardly have arrested her for fulfilling her lawful duty as a senior civil servant.

I’m afraid that this unfortunate episode shows us that, for all her reputed fearlessness and supposed independence of thought, she has behaved like a stereotypical civil servant – readier to follow what she thinks is correct procedure rather than stick to her principles.

Her proper response to the meddling police should have been: I am going to publish my report as requested as soon as it is finished. By all means make such use of it as you wish, as part of whatever inquiries you then decide to undertake.

Until the police’s shocking intervention last week, it had seemed that one way or another Ms Gray’s report would provide clarity. As a result of her pusillanimity, we now face weeks or months of further uncertainty – and, for some of us, grinding boredom as this saga remains unresolved.

Some say that Boris Johnson has bought himself a little time, or been gifted it by Ms Gray. But what is the advantage of having a stay of execution if the Prime Minister is suspended in mid-air, unable to govern properly because he doesn’t have the confidence of his party?

In fact, until the Met deign to come up with their report, not just Boris Johnson but this whole unhappy country is left dangling. This storm won’t abate until the facts are established.

And what about Sue Gray’s report? Will it ever be published? She has it in ‘secure storage and safekeeping’ and won’t be showing it to anyone ‘until such time as it may be required further’. What a way to run a country!

The pity is that, despite everything, I’m sure she is a person of integrity. We would have trusted her judgment. She could have delivered us from this misery. Alas, she has only ensured that it will go on.

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