THE partygate scandal is again hitting the headlines after it was reported the UK Government’s former ethics adviser has been fined by the Metropolitan Police.
Helen MacNamara, according to the Telegraph, is among those to receive a fixed-penalty notice (FPN) from Scotland Yard as part of its investigation into alleged lockdown-breaching parties.
It’s the latest in a series of embarrassing headlines for Boris Johnson, who is facing accusations of deliberately misleading Parliament over the bashes at Number 10 and the Cabinet Office.
The Met is investigating 12 events, including as many as six that Johnson is said to have attended, and has sent out more than 100 questionnaires.
Here’s what you need to know about the latest report.
Who is Helen MacNamara?
MacNamara is the former deputy cabinet secretary.
She served as the director general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office from 2018 to 2020.
The purpose of the role was to ensure the highest standards of propriety, integrity and governance within Government.
MacNamara was promoted to the post of deputy cabinet secretary in March 2020 and later left Government to work for the Premier League.
She began her career in the digital and creative industries after studying history at Clare College, Cambridge. In 2011 she was on Management Today’s list of 35 women leaders under 35 and the 50 women to watch working in the cultural sector. She was trustee of Target Ovarian Cancer between 2008 and 2013 and was a governor of Goldsmiths College, London.
She worked in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport from 2002 to 2013, where she held a variety of roles including working on the Olympic bid.
Later, as director for media policy, she was responsible for setting up the Leveson Inquiry and the subsequent cross-party response.
In 2015, MacNamara was responsible for co-ordinating Government preparations for the General Election.
The civil servant was also the director of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, working for the Cabinet Secretary from 2013 to 2016.
She then moved on to become director general for Housing and Planning from 2016 to 2018.
She is married with four children.
Why has she been fined?
The Daily Telegraph reported that MacNamara received a £50 fine on Friday in connection with a leaving do held in the Cabinet Office on June 18, 2020, to mark the departure of a private secretary.
The leaving do in 70 Whitehall was reportedly held for Hannah Young, a former home affairs policy adviser who was taking up the post of deputy consul general in New York.
There were said to be about 20 people present, with alcohol consumed.
Who else has been fined?
No 10 has said the identities of those receiving fines will be concealed with two exceptions – Boris Johnson and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.
The Guardian reported others had been fined for a gathering held on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral last year.
It was reported that advisers and civil servants gathered after work for two separate events on April 16, 2021, shortly after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.
One was for former Downing Street director of communications James Slack, now deputy editor of the Sun, and the second for a photographer, and they were later reported to have merged.
No 10 staff were said to have partied until the early hours of the morning in a seven-hour drinking session.
Takeaway pizzas were reported to have been ordered in and some of the revellers were said to have used a slide belonging to Johnson’s son, Wilfred.
What has the Government said?
Welsh Secretary Simon Hart said on Monday that “of course” the allegations of partying did not sit comfortably with him, but he dismissed calls that anyone should resign if they were issued with a penalty.
“I have 65,000 constituents in west Wales, where I represent, and they are not shy in coming forward and expressing a view about this and a number of other subjects,” he told Sky News.
“And throughout all of this saga of the Downing Street parties they have said one thing very clearly, and in a vast majority they say they want contrition and they want an apology, but they don’t want a resignation.”
Hart said “the world has moved on a considerable distance” and he told TalkRadio: “Looking at how this interview started and what we’re seeing in Ukraine, that helps contextualise all of this in my head.
“And I think we’re now dealing with something of such seriousness and such horror that what went on maybe two years ago clearly needs to be dealt with, and should be – it’s a source of irritation for a lot of people still – but I’m glad that this thing is now coming to a conclusion.”
Meanwhile, Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested Johnson had been handed incorrect information about the gatherings before he told MPs no rules had been broken.
“The Prime Minister said that he was told the rules were followed, but that turns out not to be correct and we know that fines have now been issued, but the Prime Minister can only work on the information he is given,” he told LBC.
