"First of all I want to apologize. I'm sorry for the things that just didn't go well and I'm sorry for the way the matter was handled."
Boris Johnson defends himself in the House of Commons on the so-called "partygate" scandal relating to a series of parties that would have been held in Downing Street in full lockdown. From now on, Prime Minister Tory said, he will act "to repair what has been done". He said he was "desolate" and announced "changes to the way Downing Street and the Cabinet Office work so that I can get on with the job I was elected to do." He also promised to create a "Prime Minister's Office with a permanent secretary responsible for number 10".
It does not intend to take up the provocations of those who, among the opposition benches, want its head. "A man without shame, unfit for the role of prime minister", the merciless attack of the leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer.
THE GRAY REPORT - The ground beneath Johnson's feet continues to shake, especially after the publication of the report by senior official Sue Gray: it is a total of 12 pages, in which failures in leadership and judgment "by the 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office "and there is talk of behavior" difficult to justify. "Some events, it is emphasized, should not have been authorized during that period of restrictions or take place in that way.
The report states that "the meetings within this survey are spread over a period of 20 months (in the years 2020-21, ed.), A period that has been unique in recent times in terms of complexity and breadth of requests to public employees and indeed to the general public ". "There is a significant lesson - we read - to be drawn from these events that must be dealt with immediately throughout the government. For this reason it is not necessary to wait for the conclusion of the police investigations". Not only that, Gray refers to the "excessive use of alcohol" at parties, inappropriate for those institutional places.
SCOTLAND YARD INVESTIGATIONS - Also according to the Gray report, Scotland Yard is also investigating Prime Minister Johnson's birthday party in the Cabinet Room in Downing Street on June 19, 2020.
A total of 16 events ended under the lens of the Gray report, of which 12 are the subject of the investigation launched by Scotland Yard and concern at least eight different dates. The four unfinished under police investigation all occurred in 2020, May 15, November 27, December 10 and 15.
(Unioneonline / D)