The Sue Gray Report: Endgame? Not really, but not out of the woods yet
An Emotional Rollercoaster into Downing St. Nonsense
The problem that existed with the Sue Gray report was that it was always going to be underwhelming - at least to a degree.
You can read the full report here.
It isn’t likely - nor was it ever likely enough - to force the Prime Minister to resign of his own volition; no more or less than it did when the report was released previously in its truncated form and spoken about/analysed on this page here at the beginning of February.
In the absence of the Prime Minister resigning of his own volition, he could be forced to resign, of course.
But - a forced resignation could only be brought forward by the Conservatives.
This provides an immediate problem insofar as many Conservatives do not possess a spine, and those who do, seem to be experiencing the ‘bystander effect’.
The chances are then that nothing is likely to happen. At least not immediately as many would hope, and so the results are sub-optimal.
And thus in the absence of the Conservatives’ having ‘a spine’, what many who wish to see the back of Johnson will likely have to endure the patience of waiting for the conclusion of the Privileges Committee investigation as this page suggested it might weeks ago.
Even then, there’s no guarantee that Boris Johnson will face any punishment.
Strikingly however, and irrespective of whatever conclusions were drawn by Sue Gray on Boris Johnson, the public have (mostly) already made up their own minds.
Actually, Sue Gray’s report merely confirmed what the public already knew months ago, and to this day, every day Boris Johnson remains as Prime Minister - a point I made in my previous article here - is toxic for the Conservative Party.
On a rational level, this is not a ‘bad thing’ for opposition. At least not politically.
Some Conservatives, like Tom Tugendhat or the constantly flip-flopping Sir Roger Gale [that this page has lampooned on numerous occasions], and others, too, acknowledge how toxic Johnson is for ‘Brand Conservative’, as do Mark Harper and Steve Baker.
In the case of Gale, he’s asking the Prime Minister to resign. He did this before. In January. Before rescinding it. In April. But now he's calling on him to go. Again.
Just to give an indication of how tied in knots the Conservatives are on this. They needn’t be for the outcome is very simple.