On the very day in December 2021 that I was first learning about a new and worrying variant of Covid – Omicron – Jack Doyle, my comms supremo, came to see me. I was in the middle of scribbling a speech I had to make about an exhibition of British food then taking place in Downing Street.
‘Have you got a tick, PM?’
Of course, I said, still scribbling away since I was expected to give the speech in the next few minutes.
Jack explained that the Daily Mirror had a story about a breach of lockdown rules in No 10 during the pandemic. They were accusing the press department of having a party on December 18, 2020 – almost exactly a year previously.
Boris giving evidence at the Partygate privileges committee inquiry last year
Jack said the story was nonsense, because it was traditional for the press department to have a glass of wine at their desks on a Friday evening. I looked at him blankly. ‘So no rules were broken?’
‘No, PM,’ he said firmly, ‘no rules were broken.’
‘Fine,’ I said, and carried on.
It sounded like a load of old cobblers – probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers – and I forgot about it. I was most surprised when it was raised at PMQs the next day – as Labour’s main line of attack.
The other day I saw Ian Hislop – my old sparring partner from Have I Got News for You – being interviewed on TV and talking about the so-called Partygate scandal, or rather a dramatised reconstruction produced by Channel 4.
He was red-faced with fury. His jowls quivered. It was the first time, he said, that he had actually seen what went on – Boris Johnson, dancing drunkenly with his advisers.
I was amazed. Nothing of the kind actually happened. Drunkenness, dancing – all completely untrue; but you know what they say – a lie goes halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.
Here is what actually happened. All you really need to know about this miserable and wildly inflated affair.
Over the course of about two years of fighting Covid, there were about 15 occasions when officials in Downing Street briefly slackened the tempo of their work and raised a glass to a departing colleague, or held a quiz, or marked a birthday – in the way that all offices do.
Most of them then got on with trying to get the country through Covid.
At the time we believed that these events were in accordance with the rules – and I still think they were.
I only went to a handful – almost always to make a quick speech of thanks.
Even in the brief time I was there I saw enough to say ‘parties’ is simply too festive a word for what went on.
These events were not common, but then again they were not thought to be odd, or unusual, let alone reprehensible.
Remember, we are talking about thousands of Whitehall officials meeting in hundreds of rooms over a period of about 600 days, in a country where it is still acceptable in the workplace to break off, very occasionally, for a glass of alcoholic drink of some kind. I was so confident of our fundamental innocence that never once did I think that the story would really endanger the Government. And actually, I think we could and should have got through it far better if I had been less naive and less trusting.
Without belabouring this weary business, I think I made several catastrophic mistakes in the handling of the story.
l I should have been far more robust at the outset. I tried to defuse public anger by a series of rather pathetic apologies, even when I knew zero about the events for which I was apologising. My grovelling just made people even angrier – and made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were.
l I should not have sanctioned a ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt led by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, who was to become – unbelievably – chief of staff to Keir Starmer, and whose evidence collation was overseen by a Labour-supporting QC who had publicly called on Twitter for me to be removed from office.
I should simply have asked anyone with evidence of wrongdoing to go to the police.
l I should have realised that my old amigo Dom Cummings – still scorched by Barnard Castle – was behind it all, and that he had a ‘grid’ of grossly exaggerated stories that he and his sidekick Lee Cain were feeding to the media.
I was sitting at my desk in Chequers one Sunday in 2022, working on plans for Britain’s energy security, when I heard a really mind-boggling piece of news. The Metropolitan Police had decided to fine me for a breach of lockdown rules.
My first reaction was that this must be some form of practical joke. Then I heard they had fined Rishi too. It really must be a joke, I thought.
Some readers, influenced by the media coverage, may believe that I was indeed ‘partying’ during lockdown: spending my evenings in wassail with my cronies from the Covid Taskforce and the Cabinet Office. It simply wasn’t true. I didn’t ‘party’ with anyone.
In fact, given how hard we were all working to stop a pandemic, I find the whole suggestion nauseating. Nor was I aware of any illicit socialising by anybody else.
As for this ‘event’ on June 19, 2020 – for which I was now, almost two years later, being fined – it had never occurred to me or Rishi, either then or since, that it was in some way against the rules.
Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the Chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday.
I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.
I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance. I ate a salad – but then it was lunchtime, and I do normally eat at my desk. I did not meet anyone that I don’t meet in the course of the working day.
We then got on with another meeting. I do not for one moment believe that this so-called birthday gathering in any way constituted a breach of the rules. The event was thought to be so innocent that it was actually briefed out to the media at the time.
People read about it in the Times (actually a slightly exaggerated version) without batting an eyelid. It says a lot about the change in mood in the country and the desire some people had for revenge that this was now turned against me.
I have no idea what version of events people gave the police. But I very much doubt that it was fair. I was obviously vulnerable to the testimony of some who were determined to bring me down.
And I relied upon Sue Gray, who (though I did not know this) had already been approached to be the chief of staff to Ed Miliband, former Labour leader, and who was to go on to be the chief of staff to Keir Starmer, my number one political foe.
Some of the allegations in her report – vomiting, fights and so on – turned out to be untrue, and had to be withdrawn.
As for all the other fines that were issued – more than 120 fixed penalty notices – the answer is of course that I don’t know. I wasn’t there, or didn’t see anything that looked illegal. If the fines were like mine, they must have been a bit puzzling.
But what could I do? I paid the fine and got on with the job. I had a lot on.
Adapted from Unleashed by Boris Johnson (William Collins, £30), to be published on October 10. © Boris Johnson 2024. To order a copy for £25.50 (offer valid until October 12, 2024; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Boris Johnson will be in conversation with Beth Rigby at Cheltenham Literature Festival on October 10.
Starmer, the surprised bullock
The new Labour leader, Keir Starmer incautiously took up the complaint from teachers that it was not safe to re-open schools closed by Covid. I hammered him in the Commons. He would stand up and point out that lockdown had been hardest for the poorest and greatly damaged their academic chances.
He is right, I would tell him. We both agree that the best place for kids is in school. So why won’t he go against his masters in the teaching unions and say what the country needs to hear from him – that schools are safe?
At this point Starmer would do his puzzled/irritable face, like a bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum, and I would bash him again and again.
He won’t say it, Mr Speaker, he can’t say it. A great ox has stood on his tongue etc etc.
Starmer failed to stick up for parents, kids and common sense (never mind the scientific evidence, which also said schools were safe), and his mistake blunted his attack on the Government in what might otherwise have been a thoroughly wobbly period for us.
