Inside Politics: Met Police to issue first Partygate fines

Reports say between 15 and 20 fixed penalty notices to be handed out to government officials who flouted Covid lockdown rules, writes Matt Mathers

Tuesday 29 March 2022 08:40 BST

A policeman in Downing Street, London (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Wire)

The face of Will Smith is not one you would expect to see alongside that of warmongering Vladimir Putin. Yet the frenzied reaction to Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock at the Oscars over a joke about the former’s wife was such that the King Richard actor has made it into this morning’s Independent cartoon, below. The sketch shows Smith sat next to the Russian president and fellow strongman Kim Jong-Un as they wait for anger management therapy.

Was it a publicity stunt? Were Smith and Rock putting on a show for the millions of eyeballs glued to screens across the US and around the world? Nobody can be certain, but if the Fresh Prince star’s outburst of rage was staged, then it has certainly achieved the desired effect because everybody is talking about it – including MPs here in the UK, who are not shy in coming forward to express their opinions about whatever they think might win them a vote or two.

Simon Hoare, the Tory MP for North Dorset, said he too would have got up to “lamp” Rock had the joke been made at the expense of his wife. Inside Politics is not sure how that mentality fits with the Conservative Party’s stance on law on order, which is to come under further scrutiny later today as the Met Police prepares to hand out its first fines over the Partygate scandal.

Inside the bubble

Chief politics commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for:

Cabinet meets this morning, followed by the Commons at 11.30am: business and energy department questions and a Labour debate on Lord Lebedev’s peerage. Sue Gray, the civil servant who is no 2 at the levelling-up department as well as being famous for her inquiry into Downing Street lockdown parties, is giving evidence to a House of Lords committee about her day job, which is relations with devolved governments. Meanwhile the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs holds a pre-appointment hearing with Sir Robert Chote, the government’s preferred candidate for the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Robert Chote.

Coming up:

– Children and families minister Will Quince on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.20am

– Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner on Times Radio Breakfast at 8.35am

Daily Briefing

LOW HOPES: Russian and Ukrainian delegates are in Istanbul for the first face-to-face peace talks in more than two weeks, although there is little hope of a breakthrough as the war approaches its fifth week. Despite Volodymyr Zelensky offering to keep Ukraine neutral, there remains a large gap between the two countries’ positions. He says wants a ceasefire but will not compromise on sovereignty. Russia has so far rejected all the proposals put forward by Kyiv. The talks come after disputed reports that Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch sanctioned by the UK, was poisoned along with two Ukrainian peace negotiators at a previous round of discussions at the start of March. They reportedly developed symptoms that included red eyes and peeling skin on their faces and hands. Ukraine pushed back on the claims, with Zelenksy’s spokesman saying he had no information about the alleged attack while Rustem Umerov, the people’s deputy of Ukraine, urged people not to trust “unverified information”. Fierce fighting continues across the country, with reports that Zelensky’s troops have retaken control of the Kyiv commuter town Irpin, northwest of the capital. We’ll have updates throughout the day on our liveblog.

FINE TIME: After dropping off the agenda for weeks due to the war in Ukraine, Partygate is firmly back in the news this morning as the Met Police prepares to issue its first batch of fines to government officials who broke the law by attending drinks gatherings in Westminster during Covid lockdowns. Two months after it opened its investigation into multiple allegations of lockdown-busting partiest, Scotland Yard is poised to hand out between 15 and 20 fixed penalty notices for the most straightforward cases, where there is no doubt that the rules have been broken, with more expected to follow at a later date. The Met said it would not provide a “running commentary” on its probe and instead pointed to its latest statement on 21 March, which said detectives involved in the case had begun to interview people as witnesses and said it would progress the investigation as “quickly as possible”. There was no official update from Downing Street on Monday evening and it remains unclear if prime minister Boris Johnson is among those who will receive fines.

NO MORE HELP: Just days after his spring statement was widely criticised by MPs, think tanks and the media, Rishi Sunak appeared before the Treasury committee where he was grilled about the cost of living crisis. The chancellor signalled to MPs that there would be no extra help with energy bills before his autumn budget and defended his decision not to provide more relief for people on universal credit. The chancellor is coming under pressure to step up assistance as bills for gas and electricity soar by an average £700 next week. But at yesterday’s session he said it would not be “appropriate” to take further action until it was clear how far the energy price cap will rise in the autumn, and said that even then he would only act “if necessary”.

‘ALWAYS INEVITABLE’: It was “always inevitable” that Brexit would have an impact on UK trade with the rest of Europe, Sunak has admitted. During the same Treasury select committee where he was quizzed about the cost of living, Sunak agreed that it “might well be” the case that the slump in trade intensity experienced by the UK compared to other leading economies has been caused by the fact that Britain was the only one of them to go through Brexit. The chancellor’s comments came after the Office for Budget Responsibility published research suggesting that the UK’s “trade intensity” has tumbled by around 15 per cent as a result of leaving the EU. They represent one of the clearest admissions yet from Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit administration that EU withdrawal was bound to reduce the UK’s commercial relationship with its closest trading partners.

P&O LATEST: P&O Ferries must be stripped of its licence to operate in the UK and its boss struck off as a company director after its wilful sacking of 800 staff, senior MPs are demanding. Two committee chairs who have investigated the scandal are telling the government it must get tougher with the rogue ferry firm – amid fears its response so far will fall short. The call came as the transport secretary gave P&O “one further opportunity” to reverse the sackings, before changing the law to stop it undercutting the minimum wage as it recruits new staff. However, although Grant Shapps said he intended to “block” the redundancies, he appeared to be only applying political pressure on the operator to rethink.

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.

On the record

“Clearly it’s very difficult to sit here today and speculate on what happens to energy prices [and] therefore the biggest impact on living standards in the autumn. Let’s wait until we get there and then can decide on the most appropriate course of action, but I don’t think anyone today knows what that appropriate course of action ought to be.”

Sunak suggests there will be no extra help with energy bills until at least autumn.

From the Twitterati

“There are interesting questions here once more about the relationship between the Met and government. Would others expect a heads up if they were about to be fined? But difficult to understand full circumstances when police aren’t commenting publicly, so let’s see tomorrow.”