Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Martin Farrer

‘Failure of leadership’: what the papers say about Johnson and the Sue Gray Partygate report

Sue Gray Boris Johnson Party Partygate (Event) Metro Daily Express No 10 Sun
How some of the UK front pages saw the Gray report on Thursday.
How some of the UK front pages saw the Gray report on Thursday. Composite: Daily Express / The Northern Echo / Daily Record / Daily MIrror / i (newspaper) / Metro / Daily Mail

The front pages of the British newspapers offer very contrasting shades of Gray in their handling of the report into the Partygate scandal and its implications for Boris Johnson’s tenure in 10 Downing Street.

“Drinking, fights, vomiting: all in a day’s work, says PM” is how the Guardian sums up the prime minister’s attempt to brazen out the publication of Sue Gray’s report which found that the “senior leadership” in No 10 should bear responsibility for the boozy culture.

Guardian front page 26-05

According to sketch writer John Crace, after 30 seconds of remorse in the Commons, Johnson quickly reverted to type with “the classic narcissist’s non-apology. A tawdry torrent of self-pity. A man more sinned against than sinner. A good man cast adrift in a world he barely understood”.

The Mirror focuses on how, as the nation was in lockdown and mourning loved ones alone, the prime minister and his staff were “Laughing at us all”.

Metro picks up the comment from a senior aide to Boris Johnson as its headline. “Red wine on No 10 walls, vomiting, fighting, but… ‘We got away with it’”.

The FT says “Johnson unbowed as Gray lays bare lurid details of No 10 parties” and reckons a Tory coup is now “unlikely”.

The i picks up the theme of Gray’s conclusion: “‘Failure of leadership’”.

It’s quite a different picture if you look at some of the Tory-supporting papers, however.

The Mail adopts an indignant tone with a headline asking: “Is that it?”. It’s positioned below a lengthy sub-headline building up to its main punchline: “For months the PM’s enemies salivated at the prospect of Sue Gray skewering him. Yet after her report’s innocuous photos of him with juice and M&S sandwiches, even they must be asking …”

Nor is there any possibility of mistaking the Express for one of Johnson’s enemies as it gives the prime minister an easy ride. “Really … is this what all the fuss is about?” is its front page headline over a picture of him toasting his staff.

For the Telegraph, the Gray report is not the main story of the day as it prefers to lead with “Sunak to extend energy bill relief”. However, it does report that “Johnson denies cover-up of Abba party at Downing Street flat”, and also carries an unlikely tease to an inside story by the TV presenter Patrick Kielty reading “Wild late nights in Sue Gray’s pub”.

The Times also places the cost of living story first and Gray second. Its headline is “Gray report vindicates me over No 10 parties, claims Johnson”.

Times London front page 26 may 2022

The Sun, meanwhile, combines the two in what it calls a “message to PM Boris”. “The Party(gate) is over… now help our readers through the cost of living crisis”.

But if the pro-Johnson papers hope their champion is finally out of the woods, the treatment of the story by the non-London press might give pause for thought.

The Northern Echo, which serves many constituencies that turned Tory in 2019, has a hard-hitting front page in which it has a picture of Johnson overlaid with the words of Labour MP for Middlesbrough Andy McDonald as the headline: “‘Blood on your filthy privileged hands’”. The paper says 66% of its readers want Johnson out of No 10 amid anger at how “countless North East lives were lost while PM partied”.

The Yorkshire Post is not quite so bloodcurdling but it is nevertheless damning of a government with many seats in the region. “Failures of leadership and judgment’” it says under a picture of a rueful-looking Johnson.

In Scotland the Record says “Tory party enough to make you sick”.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
UK teenage girls outdrink boys by widest margin in Europe, study finds
More than a third of 15-year-old girls and less than a quarter of boys in UK say they repeatedly get drunk, OECD says
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
The dill of a lifetime? In a nation that’s enduring its own sour patch, the pickle dominated 2024
When did we know for sure
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Australian protein bar taste test: the winner is ‘giving fitness, but not entirely unpleasant’
From slabs with ‘dreaded’ soy nuggets to those that resemble a Milky Way, Jess Ho trials 10 protein bars and sorts through the sweet, the sticky and the downright sickly
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Porn shown in Spotify search results after content moderation failures
Spotify users have found porn videos appearing in their search results
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
2024 Made These "Controversial" Shoe Trends a Lot Less Polarizing
There's nothing divisive in footwear anymore.
Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Moderate Drinking Linked to Lower Overall Mortality Rate, Says National Academy of Sciences
So let's all enjoy a moderate toast to a Happy New Year!
Reason
Reason
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play