When Boris Johnson received the final report from Sue Gray about the holiday scandal, the paper was still hot on the printer. It was Wednesday morning and the Prime Minister was in his office with Steve Barclay, his chief of staff, and Guto Harri, his communications director. Samantha Jones, the permanent secretary of number 10, hurried the report, the pages still loose.
They were waiting for the document at 8 in the morning. It was now 10 a.m. and they only had an hour to prepare Johnson’s statement to the Commons and pass it on to Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the spokesman, and Sir Keir Starmer, the opposition leader. Johnson and Barclay began reading while Harri tapped to the end to read the findings. Then the silence was broken