A veteran Tory MP, who I’ve known for almost 30 years, just laid into me – and my colleagues in much of the media – for allegedly exaggerating the seriousness of how Covid laws were systematically broken in 10 Downing Street.
He hadn’t read Sue Gray’s report into the rule-breaking parties and did not attend the PM’s statement on her findings. He has already decided that all is for the best in Boris Johnson’s best of all possible worlds.
His decision to ignore Gray’s report is not what most voters would expect from their elected representatives. What many would see as his negligence is all the greater because in my lifetime there has never been a report into misconduct at the heart of government as damaging as Gray’s.
The respected official gives a dizzying number of examples of senior and junior officials and ministers – including the most senior official, Simon Case, and the prime minister – behaving as though laws they formulated to protect the NHS and save lives didn’t apply to them.
Here are just a few manifestations of the rottenness at the heart of government. The
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