The long-awaited report is expected this week
Civil servant Sue Gray is expected to publish her damming Partygate findings after Scotland Yard concluded its probe into lockdown bashes in Downing Street and Whitehall last week.
The release of the full report had been delayed until an inquiry by the Metropolitan Police concluded.
While that inquiry ended last week, with 126 fines being handed to 83 people including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the report has still not been given to Downing Street, a spokesperson has confirmed.
The PM may have avoided any further fines beyond the £50 penalty for his lockdown birthday, but the long-awaited publication is expected to be troublesome for the PM.
Over the weekend, the
Times quoted a senior official familiar with the content who said “Sue’s report is excoriating. It will make things incredibly difficult for the prime minister…her report could be enough to end him.”
The senior official first embarked on the investigation after chief of the civil service Simon Case was made to step aside, following revelations that one of the alleged party had been held in his own office.
On Monday morning, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke was forced to defend the civil servant, after she was accused by an anonymous government source of political grandstanding. "I have never met her but I have heard a great deal about her," he told broadcasters.
"By repute she is one of the most fiercely independent and professional civil servants in the whole of government and brings a vast range of experience to bear, so I don’t think there is any politics.
"In no way do I think there is anything other than a practical dimension to the question of when it comes out, now that the police have concluded their investigation."
An anonymous source told the
Mail: "Sue Gray is supposed to be neutral but she’s been busy playing politics," and claimed she is "enjoying the limelight a little too much."
Gray has not been tasked with deciding whether the law was broken but to establish the facts of what happened.
It's thought the report could contain photographs of civil servants, government officials and even journalists partying on the Downing Street estate.
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