Partygate: Why the guilty must be named as Metropolitan Police issue fines – The Yorkshire Post says

THE secrecy surrounding the identifies of the first tranche of individuals to be fined by the Metropolitan Police for attending lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street and Whitehall represents a farcical new contempt which must not go unchallenged.
By YP Comment
Published 30th Mar 2022, 05:55 BST

The convicted – and they do not appear to include Boris Johnson at this stage of the criminal process – are not ordinary members of public who would be entitled to have their anonymity safeguarded if they were to have been issued with a fixed penalty notice.

Sheffield Council secrecy over suspended ‘partygate’ CEO Kate Josephs is shameful and insults taxpayers paying her £190,000 salary – Tom Richmond

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Those handed fines rank amongst the most influential individuals in Britain who, at the time, were responsible for setting and implementing the lockdown laws that they then breached with a wilful arrogance very rarely witnessed in public life.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson arriving for a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London as the first 'partygate' fines are issued.Prime Minister Boris Johnson arriving for a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London as the first 'partygate' fines are issued.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson arriving for a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London as the first 'partygate' fines are issued.

That Downing Street was a workplace – and also Mr Johnson’s home – offers no excuse. Those concerned should have known better, hence why any right to privacy should be forfeited. And the fact that they compounded matters with a contemptuous cover-up, presumably to protect the Prime Minister, means that the identities of those concerned should be placed in the public domain alongside the unredacted publication of senior civil servant Sue Gray’s inquiry.

Not only is in the public interest due to the seriousness of the rank hypocrisy that took place in the corridors of power, but it is essential before the fate of those concerned, from the Prime Minister to Sheffield City Council’s suspended chief executive Kate Josephs who headed the Covid task force at the time, can be determined.

And this is also important for two other reasons – the need to protect the reputations of those senior public figures who did comply with the rules, when their colleagues clearly did not, and to help the country to move on from ‘partygate’ as part of a wider Covid healing process.

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Related topics:Downing StreetPartygateYorkshire PostBoris JohnsonKate Josephs

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