The long-awaited Sue Gray report contained some contradictions.
A “report” which Gray called an “update”.
A process which was meant to produce factual findings but not general conclusions and which ultimately did the opposite.
Most importantly, this update did not provide the judgment day which both the public and MPs were eagerly awaiting for.
The best way to think of this short document is that it was, to paraphrase the Prime Minister ’s favourite, Churchill, not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning for Partygate.
Despite it being just an update, Gray’s document did provide three important things.
First, Gray revealed which gatherings are being investigated by the police - 12 of the 16 Gray had looked at.
These include the “bring your own booze” party on 20 May 2020, which the Prime Minister attended, the Prime Minister’s birthday party on 19 June 2020 and the leaving party which is alleged to have taken place in his own flat on 13 November 2020.
In Parliament he refused to say whether he was there, having previously insisted that it was not a party.
This confirms for the first time that the Prime Minister is himself under direct criminal investigation potentially for multiple offences.
Second, although Gray said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on whether gatherings breached rules, because of the police investigation, it was obvious enough that she thought they did.
That is what she must have meant by “a number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did.”
And it is obvious enough where she lays blame: “Failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No. 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times.”
Third, Gray’s position was always near impossible.
She is investigating her direct boss - Simon Case - who allegedly organised his own gathering which is being investigated by the police - and his boss – the Prime Minister himself.
But she still has to complete her report and has decided to “ensure the secure storage and safekeeping” of the information she has received away from the government itself – a quite extraordinary development.
And so Gray’s update was both tantalisingly vague and, on important points, interesting and specific.
The Prime Minister repeatedly pleaded with Parliament to wait for the outcome of the “investigation”.
With the police apparently being handed 300 photographs of gatherings by Gray, and the now complex police investigation rumbling on, he probably wishes today had been judgment day after all.
