Cressida Dick appeared to rule out any punishment stronger than a fine for Boris Johnson over Partygate today – as he refused to confirm he would quit if found to have broken the law.
Scotland Yard is sending formal questionnaires to more than 50 people to ask them to give an account of their involvement, with the documents due to start arriving by the end of this week.
But it comes after Scotland Yard has been rocked by multiple scandals in recent months, including the force‘s handling of partygate, Sarah Everard‘s murder and repeated claims of a culture of misogyny and racism.
Country‘s most senior police officer says Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, ‚left her with no choice‘ but to quit
Senior Conservative William Wragg sensationally revealed that he had received reports of Johnson loyalists threatening to place smear stories in the press about Tories considering declarations of no confidence in the prime minister.
And he said that MPs had told him of warnings that investment in their constituencies would be at risk if they failed to back Mr Johnson in battle to save his political life.
Tory peer Ruth Davidson, who successfully campaigned against Scottish independence in 2014 and quit frontline politics five years later, said the Prime Minister is in a ‘perilous situation’ ahead of Sue Gray’s report into the lockdown party scandal.
In an interview with The Times, the former MSP said that she would have already submitted her letter of no-confidence in Mr Johnson to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers if she were a Member of Parliament.
She also warned that Mr Johnson’s authority was teetering in part because of a growing ‘fatigue’ within the party ‘for the amount of drama that has been emanating from No10’ over allegations of lockdown-busting gatherings across government.
Scotland Yard will meet with a leading rebel Conservative to discuss claims of threats and blackmail of backbenchers by government whips early next week, The Telegraph can disclose.
A detective from the Metropolitan Police will meet with William Wragg, a senior Tory MP who first raised the concerns, to discuss the allegations, including threats to withdraw investments from constituents.
– Three serving Met officers are among six in WhatsApp group being investigated
– They allegedly shared horrific content with Couzens in months before murder
– The police watchdog is investigating a total of 16 officers linked to the case
– They include a probationer on the cordon at scene where her body was found
– Wayne Couzens, 48, showed so much experience in his awful crimes experts say he must have acted before
– The rapist officer learned today he will die in jail serving a whole life sentence for killing Sarah Everard
Scotland Yard are on standby to launch a probe into claims the ex-Defence Secretary leaked spy secrets.
But they can‘t start their investigation unless they get the green light from No10 – and Theresa May is reluctant to get the cops involved.
Responding to a question from the Press Association during a visit to Ethiopia, Mr Hunt said: “Let me say that, when it comes to issues like whether there should be a police investigation or not, there’s a very, very important principle of our system that those decisions are not made by politicians, they are made independently by police.
“And that has to be the correct way forward in this situation.”