I volunteer. You know this inquiry that Downing Street is holding into itself to find out whether or not it had Christmas parties last year? An inquiry that’s all the more pressing now that we’ve seen a bleak photograph of Boris Johnson hosting a quiz? “The Times understands that even before the photo was published in the Sunday Mirror there had been a discussion about whether to bring in someone external to oversee the investigation,” we reported yesterday. I am all in favour of this, and I think it should be me.
Investigating Downing Street, my model would be Suranne Jones investigating that nuclear submarine in Vigil. Just like her, I would be surrounded by lots of people who knew the truth and who desperately didn’t want to tell me it.
My first interview would be with the captain, I mean, prime minister. “When you hosted a quiz,” I would ask him, keenly, “did you know you were hosting a quiz?” After which I expect he would say “darn” or “gosh” or “harrumph”. Then I would ask him how many other people were in the room when he did this, and whether all the other people on Zoom were in their own tiny windows (indicating separation) or one big window (indicating illegal festive togetherness). And at that point — and this may be terribly unfair — I would expect a degree of bluster.
In the gangways, I mean corridors, of the sub, I mean building, I would expect worse than that. Open hostility from all I passed. Eyes would narrow and lips would curl at my piercing questions about eggnog. Pinned down on party games, perhaps they would cite the Official Secret Santa Act.
Simon Case, cabinet secretary and coxswain, would shadow me, uncomfortably close. “Whose side,” I would think, “is he really on?” At one point perhaps he would free me after I became mysteriously locked in a terrifyingly claustrophobic chamber with metallic walls, by which of course I mean Boris and Carrie Johnson’s newly redecorated living room. “I had a panic attack,” I would tell him afterwards, shivering. “It reminded me of Harrods.” And then we would hug.
Advertisement
“What you have to understand,” he would hiss in my ear, “is that there are saboteurs aboard this sinking ship who would see us scuttled!” By which, of course, he would mean the cabinet. So, I’d interview some of them. Such as Nadhim Zahawi, about his comments yesterday that there were no laws against tinsel and Santa hats, although only because the image of him wearing both tinsel and a Santa hat for some reason amuses me enormously.
I’d interview Priti Patel about her reportedly being a question in the quiz, thanks to her announcement last year that the number of tests carried out so far was “three hundred thousand and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand”. Although really, I’d just want to know if she understood yet what she’d got wrong. Because, look, I might be working hard on my investigation, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also have a little fun.
For the truth of last December, though, I might also have to speak to some of those no longer on board. “It’s admirable that you resigned,” I might say to Allegra Stratton, “but did you ever think of just telling us all what happened, instead?” And who knows what Matt Hancock could reveal? Door stays open, Mr Hancock, if you please. One day, perhaps, I would find myself sitting on a bench in St James’s Park, and I would be joined by a mad tramp. “The secrets!” he’d rave. “The conspiracies! I know it all!” To which I would reply, “On the other hand, Dominic, you stopped working there last November.”
In time, as the stalling, obstruction and sheer obfuscation got too much, perhaps I’d seek the counsel of others who had investigated this strange, sealed world before. Such as, for example, Lord Geidt, who was tasked by Boris Johnson earlier this year with investigating what Boris Johnson knew about where Boris Johnson found the money to redecorate Boris Johnson’s flat.
“But that sounds so easy!” I’d say. “Couldn’t you just ask him?” At which I expect he’d laugh and laugh, but with laughter that eventually disintegrated into tears.
Advertisement
In the end, I suppose, I’d end up having to speak to the captain, I mean prime minister, again myself. “Oh, come on,” he’d say. “Still with this? Aren’t there more important things going on? Because it’s not a murder, like on the sub. It’s just a couple of parties!” And I’d say, “Look, mate, you’re the one who promised an investigation. When you could have just dealt with the consequences there and then.”
And then I might say, no, but seriously. Because you keep doing this. It’s a pattern. You run into difficulties — political, diplomatic, reputational, whatever — and you extricate yourself with a promise. But it’s always an impossible promise. It’s a magic island airport, or £350 million for the NHS, or Northern Ireland being simultaneously inside the single market and out of it, or in this case, a Downing Street investigation which clears the air by Christmas.
And you know it’s impossible when you make it, but you don’t care, because the point is to kick the can down the road. Only, the road, each time, gets shorter. By Christmas? You’re at the end. Don’t you see? The end is now.
And the PM, perhaps alarmed at my saying that, would promise to hold another investigation into why he wanted an investigation, this time to report that very afternoon. And I would say, “Come on Boris, you’re just doing it again, everybody can see”. And he would say, “Hey, don’t knock the strategy, it’s never sunk me yet”.
