The Gray report

The Metropolitan Police have asked that 'minimal reference' should be made in Sue Gray's report, in order to 'avoid any prejudice to our investigation'¹.

The entrances to Downing Street are guarded by officers of the Met. If, as seems almost certain, illegal gatherings happened at Downing Street or elsewhere during lockdowns, then there are two options: either the officers guarding the entrances were doing their job so incompetently that they did not notice, or they knew. If they were so incompetent that they did not notice the events, then there is a serious problem of competence within the Met. If they knew and did not report these events they are obviously seriously remiss in their duties as police officers which is again a serious problem within the Met. Finally if they did report the events but those reports were not acted on then there is, once more, a very serious problem within the Met.

That means that the Met is not only, and not even mostly, investigating possible illegal actions by Johnson and his enablers: it is investigating itself. It thus has an absolutely enormous and very obvious conflict of interest in this investigation: the chance of any findings by the Met in such an investigation being unbiased is tiny. We do not allow people we suspect of crimes to investigate themselves² and we should not allow the Met to investigate itself. What should happen, instead, is that some other force should be selected to investigate the Met: some force which is not implicated in the wrongdoing being investigated.

Will that happen? Don't be silly: of course it won't.