Once again ... for those at the back.... it is not about holding parties or gatherings during COVID.... the police have already investigated and fined where appropriate. Its about lying to Parliament .....deliberately .....which Starmer and Rayner did not do.
I disagree with your point about the gatherings here, as while the issue is ultimately about misleading Parliament - which the evidence as a whole suggests he did - the question of what actually happened at the No.10 gatherings during lockdown is still very relevant to the report’s findings.
There are essentially two branches of evidence in relation to the report’s conclusions. The first is whether Johnson had first hand experiences of covid breaches at the gatherings he attended, and in turn whether he ultimately misled Parliament about these breaches when later making statements to the House. The question of what happened at these events is therefore very relevant to the charges of misleading and a large section of the report is dedicated to this.
The second branch is in relation to the assurances provided to Johnson by his staff that no covid breaches occurred, particularly in relation to gatherings Johnson claims he was not aware of. The evidence here suggests Johnson did exaggerate both the number of these assurances and their scope, and that he failed to seek more robust assurances over time. There is also the issue of failing to correct the record when he incorrectly referred to covid guidance, rather than covid rule, as well as the scope of the denials he delivered to the House, given that the assurances provided to him largely related to a single gathering, and not all of them. But I would still say that the bulk of the evidence in relation to misleading the House concerns his first hand knowledge of whether breaches occurred at the events he attended, as well as one event which the report claims he should have been aware, but that Johnson did not attend.
This is why everyone should read the report itself, as the report essentially disregards whether FPNs were issued by the police or not when considering whether breaches occurred at the various gatherings (Starmer and Rayner might want to read paragraph 89). This section of the report is also the area which Johnson is likely to contest the most, and is also where people will reference when discussing if the report was guilty of overreach (one specific area in particular).
The report studied six gatherings, and found that breaches occurred at each of them, but I’m personally not convinced in relation to the garden gathering on 20 May 2020 and to a lesser extent the birthday cake event on 19 June 2020. I think there’s still reasonable doubt about these events and so it’s not obvious to me that he did mislead in relation to these dates.
The more controversial issue is whether Johnson was aware of breaches occurring at the 18 December 2020 event in the press office, which he did not attend but may have caught sight of when he returned to his No. 10 flat late that night. Personally I think it’s very dodgy to determine what Johnson would or should have seen here, and so to determine that he deliberately misled about this specific event is overreach in my view.
The evidence for the other gatherings, particularly on 13 November 2020, is less controversial and it’s reasonable to conclude here that breaches did occur, given that the gatherings were not strictly necessary for work purposes. The 13 November gathering is particularly important given the later question on this by MP Catherine West, to which Johnson responded by claiming covid guidance and rules were followed at all times, which was misleading.
Overall I found the report to be overly long, repetitive and a bit pompous, but people should still read it because there are definitely controversial elements to it. I would also say there is evidence of animosity towards Johnson, who clearly got under the skin of the Committee. The matter of misleading the House might be clear cut, and the subsequent debate won’t change that fact. But like I said there are areas of controversy, and some genuine points of debate, so it’s well worth reading the report itself as I don’t think these have been particularly well covered by the press.
