Cummings wanted Abba-themed party to be Johnson’s Waterloo but who has won the war?
THE night of Nov 13, 2020 is burned into the memory of anyone who was working in Downing Street that day. After a no-holds-barred power struggle between two factions, Dominic Cummings, the man regarded by some as Boris Johnson’s “Rasputin”, had been ousted and was on his way out with his belongings in a cardboard box.
What happened next has become one of the most hotly disputed episodes of partygate, with two wildly differing versions competing for the attention of those tasked with investigating.
According to Mr Cummings, his departure was celebrated by his nemesis, Carrie Johnson, by inviting her friends to the Downing Street flat for an “Abba-themed” victory party at which the revellers presumably danced on the grave of his career.
According to those who were there, it was nothing more than a straight-laced work meeting at which Mr Johnson and his close circle discussed how to move on from the departure of Mr Cummings and Lee Cain, the No10 director of communications, who quit on the same day. So what really happened?
We know from the Sue Gray report that Mr Johnson left his ground floor office in No10 at 7.17pm, and came across staff having a drink with Mr Cain outside the Downing Street press office.
Ms Gray says that “on his way to his Downing Street flat” Mr Johnson “joined the gathering and made a leaving speech for Lee Cain”. Some of those sharing drinks with Mr Cain were fined, but they did not include Mr Johnson, who told the Commons yesterday that making speeches when staff left was part of his job. At around 8pm, according to Ms Gray, Mr Johnson arrived in his flat above No 11 where he joined five special advisers who had gathered “to discuss the handling of [the] departure” of Messrs Cummings and Cain. “Food and alcohol were available,” Ms Gray reports, and “the discussion carried on later into the evening with attendees leaving at various points”. Arguably the most curious aspect of the Gray report is that she only gathered “limited” information about the meeting in the flat, as she had just started obtaining evidence about it when the police began their investigation.
She stopped her own inquiries to avoid prejudicing the police investigation, and when Scotland Yard concluded its probe this month she decided it was “not appropriate or proportionate” to re-start her inquiries, which would have delayed her publication.
Whatever happened after 8pm is obscured by a fog of claim and counterclaim, but The Daily Telegraph has established that no-one was fined, suggesting the police and Ms Gray either believed that it was a work meeting or simply lacked solid evidence to the contrary.
Claims of a “boisterous celebration” in the No11 flat after Mr Cummings’s departure first emerged two days after it was supposed to have happened.
At the time, the allegation was attributed to a briefing war between the Cummings/cain faction, and a faction centred around Carrie Johnson, who was said to have detested the “macho culture” associated with the two men.
More than a year later a fresh detail was added – the party had been “Abba themed”. Mr Cummings, who has made it his mission to bring down Mr Johnson, claimed photographs of the “party” existed, but none surfaced.
Mr Johnson’s recollection is that he was interviewing Henry Newman, a friend of Mrs Johnson, about a change of job. Others who were there reportedly included Josh Grimstone, another member of Mrs Johnson’s close circle and a special adviser to Michael Gove.
Meanwhile, Benny Andersson, the Abba songwriter, said. “You can’t call it an Abba party. It is a Johnson party where they happened to play Abba music.”