A highly anticipated report released yesterday described leadership failures in the office of Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, as well as excessive workplace drinking.
The report found that Downing Street held parties that breached pandemic lockdowns when the government was urging the public to avoid socializing. It did not directly implicate Johnson in wrongdoing, leaving that judgment to a separate police investigation. That may give him some political breathing room.
Sue Gray, the author of the report, was forced to scrub the document of its potentially most damaging details because London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating eight parties. Ominously, the police said late yesterday that they had so far collected more than 500 pages of evidence and more than 300 photos.
Quotable: “There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No. 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times,” the report said. “Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place. Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did.”
New York Times