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Mystery remains over ‘Abba-themed’ Downing Street partygate event

Carrie Johnson was reportedly among those celebrating Dominic Cummings' departure, but accounts of the evening differ - Reuters/Henry Nicholls
Carrie Johnson was reportedly among those celebrating Dominic Cummings' departure, but accounts of the evening differ - Reuters/Henry Nicholls

The night of Nov 13 2020 is burned into the memory of anyone who was working in Downing Street that day. After a no-holds-barred power struggle between two rival factions, Dominic Cummings - the man regarded by some as Boris Johnson’s “Rasputin” - had been ousted and was on his way out, with his belongings in a cardboard box.

What happened next has become one of the most hotly-disputed episodes of partygate, with two wildly different versions of events competing for the attention of those investigating the scandal.

According to Mr Cummings, his departure was celebrated by his nemesis, Carrie Johnson, inviting her mates to the Downing Street flat for an “Abba-themed” victory party - at which the revellers presumably danced on the grave of his career.

According to those who were there, the flat played host to nothing more than a straight-laced work meeting at which Mr Johnson and his close circle discussed how to move on from the departure of Mr Cummings and Lee Cain, Number 10’s director of communications, who quit on the same day.

Dominic Cummings had left Downing Street earlier that evening with his contents in a cardboard box - Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
Dominic Cummings had left Downing Street earlier that evening with his contents in a cardboard box - Hollie Adams/Bloomberg

So what really happened?

We know from the Sue Gray report that Boris Johnson left his ground floor office in No 10 at 7.17pm and came across staff having a drink with Mr Cain around a table outside the Downing Street press office.

Ms Gray said that “on his way to his Downing Street flat”, Mr Johnson “joined the gathering and made a leaving speech for Lee Cain”. Pictures of the event, included in the Gray report, show Mr Johnson raising a toast to Mr Cain.

Some of those sharing drinks with Mr Cain were later fined by the Metropolitan Police but they did not include Mr Johnson, who told the House of Commons on Wednesday that making speeches when staff left was part of his job.

At around 8pm, according to Ms Gray, Mr Johnson arrived in his flat above Number 11, where he joined five special advisers who had gathered “to discuss the handling of [the] departure” of Messrs Cummings and Cain.

“Food and alcohol were available,” Ms Gray reported. “The discussion carried on later into the evening with attendees leaving at various points.”

Arguably, the most curious aspect of the Gray report is that she only gathered “limited” information about the meeting in the flat, as she had only just started obtaining evidence about it when the police began their own investigation.

She stopped her own inquiries to avoid prejudicing the police investigation and, when Scotland Yard concluded its probe this month, she decided it was “not appropriate or proportionate” to restart her inquiries, which would no doubt have delayed the publication of her report.

It means that whatever happened after 8pm in the flat that night is obscured by a fog of claim and counterclaim. However, The Telegraph has established that no-one was fined over the meeting in the flat, suggesting the police and Ms Gray either believed that it was a work meeting or simply lacked any solid evidence to the contrary.

Claims of a “boisterous celebration” in the No 11 flat in the hours after Mr Cummings’s departure first emerged in Sunday newspaper reports just two days after it was supposed to have happened.

At the time, the allegation was attributed to an ongoing briefing war between the Cummings/Cain faction - originally forged in the crucible of the Vote Leave campaign - and a faction centred around Mrs Johnson, who was said to have detested the “macho culture” associated with the two men.

More than a year later, when the partygate story gathered pace, a fresh detail was added - that the party had been “Abba-themed” and that the flat pulsed to the sound of The Winner Takes It All.

Mr Cummings, who has made it his mission to bring down Mr Johnson ever since he lost his job, claimed in an online post that photographs of the “party” existed, but none have ever surfaced. He also claimed witnesses would be able to testify that they “could all hear a party with Abba playing”. None have ever come forward.

Mr Johnson’s recollection is that he was interviewing Henry Newman, an adviser and friend of Mrs Johnson, about a change of job in the wake of the departures. Others who were there reportedly included Josh Grimstone, another member of Mrs Johnson’s close circle and a long-time special adviser to Michael Gove. The attendees have rubbished claims of a party, telling friends it was simply a work meeting.

Henry Newman, left, and Josh Grimstone were reportedly at the gathering - Jeff Gilbert Photography
Henry Newman, left, and Josh Grimstone were reportedly at the gathering - Jeff Gilbert Photography

Either way, suggestions of an Abba party are wide of the mark, according to none other than Benny Andersson, the Abba singer-songwriter. “You can’t call it an Abba party,” he said when told about the claims. “It is a Johnson party where they happened to play some Abba music. It is not an Abba party.”