As has been posted before, there are concerns that Sue Gray was biased in her report into Partygate. I do not think that is the case, but I agree that we should look at things again.
I had thought that the only person to have been fired as a result of this was Allegra Stratton (though technically she resigned). She had not attended the event in question, and when it came to jokes being made in the mock news conference, she was not the only person to be involved. It later turned out that there was a quiz held at Downing Street, though as you can see from this link, it was claimed that there were no drinks. That claim unravelled when it was seen that there was a bottle of sparking wine present.
I have since been reminded that there was another resignation, this being Shaun Bailey who resigned after breaking the rules by being at a work party.
So while I had previously said that the only person to resign was a woman who had not attended a party, it turned out that a black man did so as well after attending one.
Boris Johnson has stated that he had been told that there were no parties. It later turned out that there was a garden event at Downing Street where people were asked to bring their own booze in May. There had been one before on the 15th of May, but it could be more reasonably argued that although mixing was taking place, it was a work event.
On the 18th of June, a work event took place with alcohol and a karaoke machine. The following day, the Prime Minister was ambushed with a cake. While a violation, again I would have to say that this was a silly but more excusable breach of the guidelines.
The most interesting one is the party of the 13th of November. The PM had denied that an event took place when asked over a year later, but later it came out that he had attended it (though this may have been for a very short period of time) and the photos came out.
And of course, there was the quiz in Downing Street after all this.
Yesterday there were people defending Boris Johnson saying that he had not misled Parliament. Today he admitted he had done so, but did so in good faith. I doubt that the Metropolitan Police would accept that excuse from someone who is black.
Considering the lack of people being held accountable for this, I do think that this should be investigated again, and those who advised Boris Johnson that he was not breaking the law should be sacked for incompetence.
