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Looks like the Great Downing Street Party Caper won’t be a hard case to crack

Even the gang’s meticulous blueprint has turned up – disclosed only to a close-knit core group of, erm, about 100 gossipy Downing Street and Cabinet Office staffers

Sean O'Grady
Monday 10 January 2022 20:40 GMT
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How long before Boris himself gets his collar felt?
How long before Boris himself gets his collar felt? (Getty)

Looks like the great Downing Street Lockdown-Busting Party Caper isn’t going to be a particularly difficult case to crack. Chief Super Sue Gray of the Yard (aka the Department for Housing) has been sticking her nose where it’s not wanted all over Downing Street and Whitehall.

Her snout, Dominic “The Mekon” Cummings, coughed last Friday afternoon – with no great pressure on him, as it goes – and gave her the tasty lead: Friday 20 May 2020, Downing Street garden. Picnic food. Nibbles. Drinks. No shooters...

The criminal mastermind, known simply as “Boris” or “The Trolley”, and his moll, Carrie, were there, they say. And they and the rest of the gang left their dabs all round the gaff. Careless talk…

Even the gang’s meticulous blueprint has turned up. Disclosed only to a close-knit core group of, erm, about 100 gossipy Downing Street and Cabinet Office staffers, and left on the civil service server, it goes like this:

“Hi all, after what has been an incredibly busy period it would be nice to make the most of the lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening. Please join us from 6pm and bring your own booze!”

Love the cockney jocularity of “Big Martin”, don’t you? That’s Martin Reynolds, sidekick to Boris – known formally as the prime minister’s principal private secretary, which is underworld code for “great big yes-man”.

Turns out that Boris has told one of his snouts to tell the press that Reynolds will be sleeping with the fishes before long, albeit with an index-linked pension to look forward to.

Reynolds, then, is the fall guy: the piece of raw meat thrown out of the window to distract DCS Gray and the vicious media attack-dogs on Boris’s trail. How long before Boris himself gets his collar felt?

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His criminal empire has been crumbling for a while now. A couple of big fraud operations perpetrated on the punters, Brexit and the “levelling up” scam, have started to fall apart, and he seems to be losing his touch at evading detection.

Some members of his gang have been mumbling about how things might be if Rishi “The Cash” Sunak or “Cheesy Liz” Truss were running the outfit. They don’t like the rival mobsters, fronted up by former brief “Killer” Starmer and Ange “Bootsie” Rayner, poking fun at them down at The Blind Beggar.

The word on the Downing Street grapevine is that the Johnson gang are getting jittery.

They’ve been known to panic before, and get shot of the boss, and fast: Mad Maggie, Quiet Man, Dave “Call me” Cameron, Dancin’ Tess. The only question now is whether The Trolley will give himself up to DCS Gray and come quietly.

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