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London Police close the siege on Boris Johnson when investigating the banned parties in Downing Street

2022-01-25T13:27:57.711Z


Indignation is growing among conservative deputies after learning the details of the surprise birthday organized by the wife of the prime minister in full confinement. Police intervention may delay publication of internal investigation


Until the last moment the London Metropolitan Police (the

Met, or New Scotland Yard, as its headquarters is known) had resisted entering the scandal of banned parties in Downing Street during confinement. Partly for the excuse of maintaining the rule of not retrospectively investigating violations in the pandemic. In part to wait for the conclusions of Sue Gray, the senior official who has taken the reins of the internal investigation. But above all, because of the tremendous political impact that a political crisis of such magnitude would have. Until this Tuesday. The director of the police, Cressida Dick, has confirmed before the municipal assembly of London that her department is already investigating several of the parties that took place in the seat of the Government.“I can confirm that the Met is currently investigating a number of events that have occurred in Downing Street and Whitehall [as the complex where the main ministries are concentrated, the former Palace of Whitehall, is known] over the last two years, in relation to the possible violation of the rules of social distancing to combat covid-19″, said the commissioner.

The decision, which notably increases the pressure on Johnson, has been a combination of information shared between Sue Gray, the permanent deputy secretary of the Cabinet Office who leads the internal investigations, and Cressida Dick herself. The latter, pressured in recent days by the Labor opposition for its passivity in the face of the scandal, has also valued "the opinions of its own agents" to take such a delicate step, as it has explained.

It all happens during a critical week for the prime minister.

Waiting for Gray's report, which everyone assumed would be before Friday, even if it does not have an official publication date, Johnson tries to recover a semblance of normalcy, while his team conveys the idea that nothing is lost and that his boss intends to stand up and resist in the position.

The evidence, however, is piling up against him.

Like the surprise birthday party that his wife organized in full confinement.

Carrie Symonds bought a cake on June 19, 2020 and gathered about 30 people in the

Cabinet Room

(the room of the Council of Ministers with its oval table) to surprise the prime minister, who was turning 56 that day. Among the guests was Luly Lytle, the sought-after interior designer whom the Johnsons had commissioned to redecorate their private apartment at 11 Downing Street.

There was prepared food, coming from Mark & ​​Spencer

stores ,

and Happy Birthday was sung. Even the Minister of Economy, Rishi Sunak, whom all the pools place as the main candidate to succeed Johnson, was seen at the party, "although he was not invited," according to one of his spokesmen. ITV assures that several relatives of Johnson spent that night in Downing Street, and the party continued. Government sources have already admitted that the Prime Minister's brothers shared a barbecue with him and his wife that night in the garden of the residence, but that the number of people never exceeded the limit of six that was then in force.

“A group of staff who normally work at 10 Downing Street briefly gathered in the

Cabinet Room,

after a meeting, to wish the Prime Minister a happy birthday. He was not present for more than 10 minutes, ”said Johnson's spokesmen in their official response to the new information. They no longer deny the surprise celebration, nor the cake, nor the 30 people summoned in an interior space, nor the fact that all this happened while the rules, for the rest of the British, prohibited meetings in closed places of individuals from different homes.

“It is completely nauseating that the prime minister spent that afternoon sharing cake with 30 friends in an indoor space. Although nothing surprises us anymore, it still brings to mind a very vivid pain. While dozens of people sang happy birthday to him, some families could not even sing together in memory of their loved ones at a funeral, ”said Jo Goodman, the woman who helped found the association Justice for the Relatives of Victims of Covid -19. “If he had any decency, he would do what we and the rest of the country are asking him to do and resign,” Goodman demanded. “The prime minister has become a distraction for the nation. As millions of people struggle to pay their bills, Boris Johnson and his government spend all their time trying to clean up their trail of deception,corruption and breach of the law”, assured the leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer.

Downing Street sources have confirmed that the controversial birthday party was already part of Gray's investigation, and therefore it is not a new episode that could further delay his investigation.

However, New Scotland Yard's decision to go in to investigate several of the parties may have an unexpected effect: Johnson's team, according to

SkyNews, will

delay the publication of the report until the police investigations are concluded, which could take weeks or months.

The official, who ultimately reports directly to the prime minister, had planned to give Johnson a copy of her report hours before it was made public.

The strategy of the conservative politician and his team was to immediately prepare an intervention before the House of Commons in which he apologizes again and tries to "control the final story" of everything that happened.

That is why many voices, beginning with the editorials in

The Times

, demand the full publication of the report, and not the summary of conclusions that Downing Street intended to present.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-01-25

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