Sensemaker: Johnson’s second home

• Australia revoked Novak Djokovic’s visa, again.
• The US Supreme Court blocked Biden’s bid to mandate Covid tests or vaccinations for 84 million Americans.
• Beijing rejected as a “smear” MI5’s claim that the UK-based solicitor Christine Lee was a Chinese agent.
• A senior civil servant investigating lockdown parties in Downing Street looked likely to clear Boris Johnson of criminality.

Downing Street has admitted that Boris Johnson commuted between London and Chequers after he told the country to end non-essential travel on 16 March 2020. 

For more than a year, we have been asking Number Ten to respond to information we have been given that Mr Johnson and Carrie Symonds, now Mrs Johnson, was at Chequers in the ten days after Mr Johnson had asked people to stop non-essential travel.

Downing Street previously denied it and, more recently, refused to answer questions we put to them directly. Following publication of today’s Tortoise Sensemaker, which set out the questions and the evasive answers we’d had from then until now, they issued this statement: 

“At that time, Mrs Johnson was heavily pregnant and had been placed in a vulnerable category and advised to minimise social contact.” 

“In line with clinical guidance and to minimise the risk to her they were based at Chequers during this period, with the Prime Minister commuting to Downing Street to work.”

What we’d been told:

• Sources told us the Johnsons used Chequers during this period, and that the Prime Minister travelled between London and his grace and favour home in Buckinghamshire.
• They also said members of the Chequers staff contracted Covid at this time.

What Boris Johnson said at the time: 

• On 16 March 2020 Johnson told the UK in a Downing Street press conference that “now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact and travel”.
• On 22 March 2020 the guidance reminded people to “remain in their primary residence” and stated for the avoidance of doubt that “essential travel does not include visit to second homes… whether for isolation purposes or holidays”.
• On 23 March 2020 he announced the start of the first lockdown: “From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home.”
• From 26 March 2020 people were legally prohibited from visiting their second homes.

What we’d asked:

• In June 2020 we asked Lee Cain, then Downing Street Director of Communications, whether Johnson made use of Chequers between March 23 and 27 that year. It was denied.
• More recently, we asked whether the Johnsons visited Chequers between his 16 March statement and 27 March. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister chose to answer a different question: “This claim that the PM did not comply with lockdown regulations is entirely inaccurate.” He complied with Government guidance, Downing Street said, from when it became legally enforced at 1pm on 26 March. (At that time, Downing Street did not answer the question of whether he had been in Chequers between 16 and 26 March and offered no comment on the whereabouts of Mrs Johnson.) 
• A spokesperson for Mrs Johnson did not confirm or deny she was at Chequers, but said she complied with regulations “as a heavily pregnant woman”.
• When we made enquiries to the Chequers Trust, which administers the country estate, and Thames Valley Police, which handles security there, we were referred to Downing Street. 

After we published today’s Sensemaker, Downing Street got in touch to offer greater clarity, confirming that Mrs Johnson had been at Chequers and that Mr Johnson had commuted back and forth. 

The public may have some sympathy for Mrs Johnson, who was pregnant with her first child at the time. But there was a pattern to Downing Street’s handling of this: evasiveness about the Johnsons’ movements, without a persuasive security argument for keeping them secret; and an attempt to reframe the accusation against the Johnsons as breaking the law, rather than ‘do as I say, not what I do’ hypocrisy.   

It chimes with today’s reporting of Downing Street’s apparent tactic to raise the bar for the Gray inquiry to the level of criminality. This is a higher bar than was set for other high profile resignations, such as Professor Neil Ferguson and Matthew Hancock.  

Further questions:

• Who placed Mrs Johnson in a vulnerable medical category? 
• Did Mrs Johnson travel between London and Chequers with the Prime Minister during this period and Mr Johnson’s illness?
• What was the basis for deciding that Chequers was a more suitable place for minimising social contact than Downing Street?

Sue Gray is already busy and being second-guessed. As the senior civil servant tasked with investigating parties in Downing Street during lockdown she has another two to consider, reported overnight in the Telegraph, while the Times has been briefed that she will eventually clear Boris Johnson of outright criminality.

MPs hope Gray will address a larger question: to what extent was the Prime Minister issuing one set of guidance for the public while observing another for himself, his staff, and his family? As part of this she should add to her in-tray the use of Chequers.