A minister has ruled out a new inquiry into claims of an illicit gathering in Boris Johnson’s flat during lockdown that was not considered by the Sue Gray inquiry, claiming there had already been “unbelievably comprehensive” examination of the wider subject.
Labour has called for an investigation into leaked text messages suggesting Johnson and his wife, Carrie, met two friends in their flat on the prime minister’s birthday, 19 June 2020, when indoor socialising was banned.
The evidence was not mentioned in last week’s report into illicit social events in and around No 10, published last week by Gray, a senior Cabinet Office official. Labour said this resembled “yet another cover-up”.
But Chris Philp, the junior culture, media and sport minister, told Sky News he thought there was no need for any further scrutiny: “We’ve had an unbelievably comprehensive set of investigations, going on now for nearly six months.
“There was obviously the Sue Gray investigation, published last week. She interviewed dozens if not hundreds of people in the course of her investigation, with emails, message and everything else. And we’ve had the Metropolitan police investigation, which again has gone over a number of months, and they’ve conducted that with full police powers.
“So, having had two separate investigations, including by the police, over many months, it’s not immediately obvious to me that we need any more, when this has rightly been the most investigated set of incidents in recent times.”
It was alleged that a Downing Street aide received a text from Johnson’s wife confirming that she was with two male friends in the flat, where the prime minister later joined them.
According to the Sunday Times, the aide wrote to the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, stating they had an offer to share the messages with Gray’s team ignored.
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But a Cabinet Office source said it was categorically not true that such evidence was ignored. They added that the exchange with the aide about the material was part of the information that had been provided to police.
Philp said both Gray and police “had approached everybody, including this aide”, inviting them to hand over the information, and that he believed an offer was also made to just view the texts, while stressing that he had “no inside knowledge”.
He added: “My instinctive reaction is that there have been two incredibly thorough investigations that have gone on, and unless there’s something really striking that hasn’t been known about previously, then I think they have been looked into really thoroughly.”
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said the text messages had been suppressed and that the public “deserve the truth about why the holding of a lockdown party in the prime minister’s flat on his own birthday has not been made public until now”.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson defended the integrity of Gray’s report, saying it was “impartially conducted and its contents represent the findings and conclusions of the investigation team alone”.
It was previously reported that a gathering was held in the Johnsons’ flat on 13 November 2020, with food and alcohol available and loud Abba music being played. Gray admitted she stopped investigating that particular event when the Met started their investigations, and chose not to pursue her inquiry afterwards.
Source: Guardian
