Trust in Government ‘damaged’ over parties
Freeman warns row over parties has damaged trust while Cummings promises to make further disclosures
The Prime Minister “should set the highest standards”, a minister has declared, as he warned claims of No 10 parties have damaged trust in the Government. George Freeman, the business minister, told a constituent that people in power “shouldn’t seek to escape public responsibility or accountability”. The remarks came as Dominic Cummings claimed he was prepared to swear under oath that the Prime Minister “lied to Parliament about parties” at Downing Street.
THE Prime Minister “should set the highest standards”, a minister has declared as he warned claims of rulebreaching No 10 parties have damaged trust in the Government.
George Freeman told a constituent that people in power “shouldn’t seek to escape public responsibility or accountability”, in comments likely to be seen as veiled criticism of Boris Johnson.
The business minister last night denied that he was questioning Mr Johnson’s leadership, saying he wanted to wait for the Whitehall investigation into alleged parties to conclude and to hear the Prime Minister’s response.
His private remarks, reported by The Times, emerged as Dominic Cummings claimed that he and other witnesses were prepared to swear under oath that the Prime Minister has “lied to Parliament about parties” at Downing Street.
The former chief aide to Mr Johnson also alleged there are “many other photos of parties after I left yet to appear”.
Mr Cummings indicated that he will “say more” about the issue only after a report by Sue Gray into alleged rulebreaching parties is published.
The threat risks undermining Ms Gray’s report, which is expected to conclude between the end of this week and early next week.
On May 20, 2020, the day of a No 10 drinks event for which Mr Johnson last week apologised but insisted he “believed implicitly” was a work event, Mr Cummings said he had personally warned Martin Reynolds, the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary, that an invitation to the gathering “broke the rules”.
Mr Reynolds had emailed 100 staff encouraging them to “make the most of the lovely weather” by engaging in “socially distanced drinks” in the Downing Street garden. Mr Cummings claimed that in addition to himself “a very senior official replied by email saying the invite broke the rules”, and speculated that it was “not credible” that Mr Reynolds would not have checked that Mr Johnson was happy for the event to proceed.
The former aide also made the claim that he himself raised concerns about the event with Mr Johnson directly, writing: “I said to the PM something like: Martin’s invited the building to a drinks party… The PM waved it aside.”
Mr Cummings said: “The events of May 20 alone, never mind the string of other events, mean the PM lied to Parliament about parties. Not only me but other eyewitnesses who discussed this at the time would swear under oath this is what happened.”
The Prime Minister told MPS last month that he had been “repeatedly assured” there was “no party and that no Covid rules were broken”, in response to allegations of a rule-breaching event in December 2020.
Mr Johnson’s official spokesman yesterday reiterated an outright denial, saying: “We made clear over the weekend that it’s untrue to say that the Prime Minister was told or warned ahead of that [event on May 20 2020].”
Last night it emerged that Mr Freeman, minister for science, research and innovation, said in a letter to a constituent that “the Prime Minister and his office should set the highest standards”.
The frontbencher also reportedly referred to parties taking place in No 10 at a time when many people “couldn’t see dying loved ones”. The message was sent after Mr Johnson addressed MPS about the garden party at Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday.
A Government source hit back that Mr Johnson had tackled the issue during that Commons appearance.
Mr Freeman denied last night that his letter questioned Mr Johnson’s leadership, tweeting: “I’ve been v clear re PM that we need to wait and hear what the official investigation shows and [the] PM’S response”.
He added: “My letter to constituents makes clear my anger that No10 staff were holding parties, how damaging the saga has been & that the PM & Cabinet
‘We can’t have things done behind closed doors, there would be no point to the report’
need to restore trust.” As speculation swirled about Mr Johnson’s future, a new poll indicated Rishi Sunak has a 28-point lead over Liz Truss among Tory members in a race to be the next party leader.
It came as Tory MPS raised concerns that Ms Gray’s report could be redacted, prompting calls for all senior figures referenced in the inquiry to be named, although No 10 has said the report will be published in full.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman confirmed yesterday that it would be published “swiftly” after being handed to Mr Johnson, but declined to specify a more precise timetable.
The senior Tory MP Bob Blackman, executive secretary of the 1922 Committee, said: “We need to get to the bottom of all these activities in No 10.” Arguing that the “vast majority” of attendees at any event in Downing Street were likely to have been civil servants, he said: “What happens to them, will they be disciplined?”
He urged No 10 to commit to publishing the names of senior officials involved rather than redacting them, arguing that it would make it more likely that “there may then follow disciplinary action”.
Steve Baker, a longstanding critic of Mr Johnson over lockdown policies, told Sky News he thought his constituents “may be too angry to forgive” the Prime Minister over the party allegations. He said local voters in his Wycombe seat were “furious”.
Lee Anderson, a Red Wall Tory MP who declared the inquiry must be published in its entirety, said: “We can’t have things done behind closed doors; there would be no point to the report.”
He warned he “would hope they [No 10] wouldn’t” redact names of people potentially involved in wrongdoing “unless anyone is at risk of harm”.
“At the end of the day, these people are at work. If they’ve done something, if they are part of that inquiry, you can’t have ‘Mrs X’ or ‘Mr A’ or ‘Mr B’ [instead of real names]. These people are paid by the taxpayer,” he said.
Mr Anderson added that he was referring specifically to “senior people who should know better” than to break Covid rules, and did not believe that junior officials should be “named and shamed”.
Has the Boris spell finally been broken? The Prime Minister has always been blessed with a unique political sorcery: voters have never treated this maverick in the same way as they do lesser politicians. He has a Houdini-like talent for wiggling out of tight spots. Much to the Left’s baffled rage, his charisma – foppish rather than toffish – bewitched the Red Wall back in 2019. One cannot help but detect among the myriad predictions of the PM’S imminent fall a strong element of wishful thinking, particularly among the Remainers who loathe him.
Partygate has, however, treated the public to a potentially fatal peek behind the stage curtain: a man elected to be the authentic, liberating voice of the people has spent the last two years imposing on them draconian Covid laws which he evidently believed were nonsensical and excessive. The ugly decadence, and manipulating levers and pulleys of his court cannot be unseen.
Thus the question Tory MPS ought to be asking is not simply whether the PM’S reputation has been badly damaged by the rolling series of scandals. It has. It is whether his curious political potency – an unlikely ability to win over diverse voters and endlessly bounce back from the edge of oblivion – has been permanently sapped. Not all the signs are positive. The isolated Prime Minister has gone to ground, reportedly only taking external advice from a handful of long-time political allies, including Lynton Crosby and Lord Udny-lister. Having banished the Brexiteers who helped him to power from his inner circle long ago, he shows no sign of any desire for a rapprochement. He can count the number of senior Downing Street staff that are absolutely loyal to him on one hand.
Many have poured scorn on the “Operation Red Meat” policies that are being rushed out to buttress the PM’S support among his base. It is true that they are far from perfect. An announcement to bring in the Navy to help stem illegal Channel crossings might finally focus minds on the need to get a grip on the country’s borders, but it is obviously not going to fix the problem on its own. An indication that the BBC licence fee isn’t long for this world is very welcome, but it will not come good until 2027. A vow to ease almost all restrictions on January 26 reflects a genuine determination to shake off Covid rules more rapidly, but it is unclear why the Government will not act sooner.
Nevertheless, if he can survive the next few weeks, I suspect it would be wrong to write off the Prime Minister altogether. He was given a historic majority in 2019, by winning the votes of millions of people who had never voted Tory before. He was elected not only to get Brexit done, but as an irrepressible political force vested with the role of taking back control of the country from unaccountable and undemocratic elites who had sought to crush the popular will. The tragedy of Partygate is that it suggested that he was a phoney populist – inauthentic, misleading, and just like all other politicians. If he is to survive, he needs to prove that he is still the man the people voted for.
I can think of a number of areas where he could take action almost immediately. He has allowed the fires of Brexit to be dampened by process and Euro-bureaucracy. He should make a start at fixing that by rowing back from the capitulation on the European Court of Justice that it is rumoured to be looming on the Northern Ireland Protocol, and showing Brussels that leaving the EU must mean full sovereignty for the entirety of the UK – by triggering Article 16.
He should reassess his piecemeal “war on woke”. Tormented by accusations of bigotry from metropolitan circles, Johnson has limited the Tories to protecting statues, safeguarding freedom of speech in universities, and lobbing mischievous grenades at the Beeb. Red Wall voters, however, are far more concerned with the way the white working class has been systematically overlooked amid the woke obsession with “structural” racism.
He ought to move away from his inauthentic brand of Covid populism, too. He has encouraged the patriotic cult of the NHS in slavish devotion to the polls, and repeatedly delayed the dismantling of Covid rules to cultivate an image of cautious paternalism. But having lost the authority to impose further lockdowns, he has nothing to lose from a U-turn. He should vow publicly that lockdowns will never be repeated, and lay out a detailed alternative emergency strategy, along the lines of the Swedish model.
Most of all, Johnson needs to work out what is the actual point of his premiership. Right now, there is no reforming zeal. Under Prime Minister Boris, the Civil Service remains captive to technocrats, just as under Mayor Boris City Hall remained a monument to Ken Livingston. There is no sense of what the Tories are in power to do. If it isn’t to deliver a strong Brexit, or keep taxes low, or take back control of the borders, or stand up for patriotism, or hold the line against the excesses of socialist utopianism, not least net zero, what is the point of their existence?
Thus far, no other Tory has shown that they have what it takes to grasp the contradictions of the post-liberal age, where old certainties have been crushed, first, by Brexit and then by the pandemic. None of his rivals would seem to be capable of keeping together the 2019 voting coalition that he assembled and which he risks throwing away thanks to Partygate.
Even the problem of the machinery of Downing Street is probably fixable. Although there is much gossip about how the Prime Minister will struggle to detoxify No 10, it would not be the first time that Johnson has somehow pulled off a stunning overhaul of his operations. The first few months as mayor of London were a catastrophe, as he was forced to sack his chief political adviser and his deputy, both in controversial circumstances. A series of new appointments saved his mayorship from calamity.
So not all is lost. But at the heart of his present difficulties is the simple reality that the public will not tolerate Johnson the imposter. He has no choice but to prove to us that he’s the real deal.
He was elected to be the irrepressible political force who would take back control of the country