Deputy prime minister and justice secretary Dominic Raab has suggested this morning that Boris Johnson intends to publish Sue Gray’s ‘Partygate’ report in full.
However in yesterday’s initial report the top civil servant wrote that it was “not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information,” stressing that her ability to publicly release all her findings was severely curtailed.
On Friday the Met urged Ms Gray to afford “minimal reference” to the 12 gatherings under criminal investigation.
Mr Raab first seemed to suggest that the report had already been published in full, “as he [Johnson] undertook to do”.
However Mr Raab went onto say that, as a No 10 spokesperson confirmed last night, the report would be published in full “if there’s any subsequent findings from Sue Gray”.
“The report that she gave him was published in full, and he’s been clear any further report will be published,” he went on.
Mr Raab then went on to argue that the prime minister is “getting on with the job” telling Sky News that this was what the public wanted.
“He talked with contrition and he’s going to set up an Office of the Prime Minister in Downing Street,” Mr Raab explained, referring to Johnson’s planned shake up of Downing Street following Sue Gray’s claims that the lockdown-defying gatherings under investigation represented “serious failures” of leadership and judgement.
“If you listen to the whole of the two hours the PM spoke in the chamber, my feeling was that there was a combination of contrition, answering the Sue Gray challenge and how he’s going to fix it, but also saying how he’s getting on with the vaccine rollout, the economy, and also dealing with the situation in Ukraine,” Raab argued on this morning’s broadcast round.
He went on: “That’s overwhelmingly what MPs want and I think our constituents want to see him doing and the Government doing. People wanted to see this Prime Minister getting back on with the job.”
Addressing MPs yesterday afternoon, the prime minister said that he was “sorry for the things that we simply didn’t get right and I’m also sorry for the way that this matter has been handled.”
