Sue Gray produces a strikingly patchy account of the Downing Street parties

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A civil servant’s blend of precision and pixellation

Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, published a report into gatherings that had taken place in Downing Street during the pandemic. Nine photos are included, depicting two events: a drinks party in November 2020 for a departing official, and a gathering in the Cabinet Room in June 2020 to mark the prime minister’s birthday. In parts the images are pin-sharp, capturing tins of lager, emptied wine glasses and Boris Johnson holding a plastic beaker aloft.

In the end, she delivered both. The report is an embarrassing portrait of a government which, while confronting the worst pandemic in a century, seemed remarkably preoccupied by a schedule of leaving drinks, Christmas parties, garden receptions and “Wine Time Friday”. But elsewhere its gaze is cloudy and incurious. As a crime report, it logs the blood and fingerprints and weaponry minutely, but the perpetrator is no more than a silhouette.

Her conclusions are also rather coy: the closest she comes to censuring Mr Johnson or Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, is to declare that the “senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture”. She declares that progress has been made on overhauling Downing Street’s management, and hopes junior officials “have taken the learning from this experience”.

 

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If she is a top civil servant god knows what the ordinary troops are like

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