Boris Johnson leaves cupboard in darkish over police celebration investigation

Boris Johnson didn’t inform cupboard concerning the launch of a police probe into allegedly lockdown-breaching events at No 10, leaving ministers to seek out out about it on their telephones as they left this morning’s assembly.

The prime minister was knowledgeable shortly earlier than the weekly assembly that Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick would announce the investigation throughout her look earlier than the London Meeting scheduled for 10am on Tuesday morning.

And the information was promptly leaked to the Guido Fawkes political gossip web site, which printed a report of the approaching announcement at 9.28, simply after ministers had assembled.

However Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson informed reporters that the PM determined to not inform ministers, as a result of the knowledge was delicate and it was not recognized at what level in the course of the assembly Dame Cressida would drop her bombshell.

The police probe was not mentioned in any respect in the course of the two-hour assembly, which centered on the disaster in Ukraine, the BBC funding settlement, the upcoming second anniversary of the UK’s formal departure from the EU and the development of a brand new battery manufacturing unit in Blyth.

Because the assembly drew to an finish – by which era information of the police probe was dominating information headlines and social media – the PM alluded to the continuing partygate controversy by telling ministers that “there was extra work to do to ship for the general public and the federal government wouldn’t be deterred from getting on with the job”.

Mr Johnson’s spokesperson mentioned ministers “had been in a position to learn as soon as cupboard concluded”. It seems that some heard concerning the improvement by way of their telephones moments earlier than stepping out of the well-known black door of 10 Downing Road to face the media outdoors.

Requested why the PM didn’t replace colleagues, his spokesperson mentioned: “Provided that cupboard was happening and it was unclear at precisely what level Cressida Dick would make her feedback, it was proper to permit her to make them within the first occasion, fairly than pre-empting them.”