Boris Johnson has been accused of demeaning the office of prime minister by former cabinet secretary Andrew Turnbull, who was the nation’s top civil servant under the premiership of Tony Blair.
Lord Turnbull’s comments came in a BBC Panorama documentary broadcast hours after the government published skeleton details of Cabinet Office second permanent secretary Sue Gray’s investigation into alleged lockdown-busting social gatherings in Downing Street and other parts of Whitehall.
She identified 16 gatherings between May 2020 and April last year, 12 of which were in No.10 Downing Street or its garden. All but four of the events are now under investigation by the Metropolitan Police as potential breaches of coronavirus restrictions in place at the time.
Gray said at least some of the gatherings in question “represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”.
I thought: ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’
Interviewed on the Panorama episode, titled Boris Johnson on the Brink, Turnbull was asked for his views on the prime minister’s handling of allegations about lockdown-busting parties since they began to surface towards the end of last year.
Turnbull, who was cab sec from 2002 to 2005 and now sits in the House of Lords as a crossbench peer, gave a withering assessment – particularly of a May 2020 garden party that Johnson last month told parliament he believed at the time to be a work event.
“We’ve had a series of explanations, starting with ‘there were no parties’,” Turnbull told presenter John Ware.
“I thought: ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers.’ You know, it was pretty obvious it was a party. This is like the schoolboy’s dog-ate-my-homework series of excuses, and it’s clear that the truth is not being told.”
Turnbull said he did not think Johnson was someone who saw getting things right as an “absolute priority” because “he has a sort of confidence that he has the skills to go right over it”.
Asked by Ware what Johnson had done for the office of prime minister, Turnbull gave a blunt response.
“I think he’s demeaning it,” the peer replied. “There’s really no other way of putting it. You’ve got to set a big picture and maintain an upbeat atmosphere. But looking at the details of policy is pretty low down on his priorities.”
This would never have happened under Margaret Thatcher
The 12-page update on Sue Gray’s investigation yesterday raised concerns about “fragmented” leadership structures and “blurred” lines of accountability at No.10, opening up the potential for Johnson to shift blame for Partygate onto senior officials.
Turnbull said the prime minister had an evident role in setting expectations for behaviour at Downing Street.
“Just imagine it,” he said. “You are in No.10 and you set a disco going and up there is Mrs Thatcher, probably still awake and reading her papers. Are you going to take a chance, are you going to run a disco at 1am in the morning? No. Absolutely not.”
Former cab sec Robin Butler ‘deeply saddened’
Lord Robin Butler, who served as cabinet secretary to Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair, told a House of Lords debate yesterday that he was “deeply saddened” by the portrait of No.10 that was painted by Sue Gray’s report.
Butler said he supported Johnson’s proposals to reform operations at Downing Street with the creation of a new “prime minister’s department” headed by a permanent secretary.
However, he asked for assurances the role would “be a permanent civil service post with unambiguous authority over both special advisers and civil servants”.
Baroness Natalie Evans, leader of the House of Lords, said she could not give such a guarantee.
“I am afraid that the noble lord may have gone a few steps ahead of what I am able to say today,” she said.
“No doubt there will be a lot of discussions, including with distinguished people who have expertise in this area, such as the noble lord himself, to make sure that we get the right structure going forward, which is something we all want to achieve.”
Earlier, Bob Kerslake – who was head of the civil service from 2012 to 2014 – said Sue Gray’s general findings were “utterly damning”, even without the full details.
Lord Kerslake also criticised those who sought to “trivialise” events at the heart of Partygate at a time of tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
“This goes to the heart of government and whether the government can be trusted to do the right thing and tell the truth,” he said. “It is hard to think of anything more important than that.”