Police to investigate No 10 lockdown parties

The Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation into parties held in No 10 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Commissioner Cressida Dick said they were looking into “potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations” in Downing Street and Whitehall since 2020.

She said the investigation was launched as a “result of the information provided by the Cabinet Office inquiry team”, led by civil servant Sue Gray.

The Cabinet Office said Ms Gray’s own inquiry would continue.

But it is not yet clear if the police investigation will lead to delays in its publication.

The news comes after fresh allegations of a birthday party being held for the PM in June 2020.

But ministers have disputed the number of people attending, and called for “patience” while Ms Gray’s inquiry is carried out to establish the facts.

The first thing is to have a sense of proportion.

When you hear the words “Met Police, investigation, criminal, Downing Street” that sounds incredibly dramatic.

This is a big development in this story but we are talking about the potential issuing of fixed penalty notices – fines – we are not talking about big criminal trials or people going to prison.

So it is important to keep that sense of perspective.

We don’t know how many of those high-profile parties are now being investigated and crucially we don’t know if they were parties attended by the prime minister.

We don’t know if the prime minister is in the frame for being interviewed by the police.

So, lots of unanswered questions but it means this is going to rumble on at a much higher volume for a lot longer.