The day after the "Partygate" police investigation was dropped, the Tories lined up behind the British Prime Minister, while Boris Johnson's opponents questioned the logic of the fines and pinned hopes on the so-called Gray Report.

Officer Sue Gray is expected to finalize her report this weekend and send it to Downing Street.

There it was promised that the long-awaited document would be published immediately.

Jochen Buchsteiner

Political correspondent in London.

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The London police had their investigations on Thursday after almost four months - and at the expense of more than half a million euros - declared over.

In total, she issued 126 fines to employees in the government district for violations of corona rules.

73 went to women and 53 to men.

28 people were held accountable for two or more violations, some as many as five.

Names were not mentioned - and apparently will not be passed on to Gray.

Those around them expressed disappointment.

It would be "difficult" to write the report without the names of specific people and their positions, it said.

Gray has her own credibility to defend and doesn't want "to give the impression that she's hiding anything."

Fine due to surprise party

At the beginning of the investigation, the government had announced that it would make fine notices to cabinet members public.

So far it is only known that Boris Johnson had to pay a fine for breaking the rules in June 2020.

From the police point of view, this took place when he was celebrated with a cake in the cabinet room on his 56th birthday.

The brief surprise celebration also brought Johnson's wife Carrie and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak a fine.

It is assumed that all other notices were issued to employees and officials.

Not everyone realizes that there is a public interest in identifying these individuals.

On Friday, media critical of the government tried to answer the question of why Johnson was only fined for one meeting, even though he was present at other meetings that resulted in fines for others involved.

It was suspected that different rules applied to Johnson as a resident of 10 Downing Street than to employees who were at their workplace.

Also, investigators may have accepted the argument that Johnson only showed up briefly, leaving the gatherings before they evolved from a business meeting into a – banned – social gathering.

A further complication is that in the long period of time of the twelve meetings examined - four of them were finally classified as harmless - different state codes of conduct often applied.

Tory MP Charles Walker is among the prominent former Johnson critics who turned around after the investigation ended.

As recently as February, he had called it "inevitable" for Johnson to resign over Partygate.

Walker has now called his stance "wrong" and said: "The Prime Minister will stay." He compared him to a "comeback" sportsman and said: "You can love him or hate him, but Boris Johnson is an extraordinary politician. The Times quoted another former critic as saying the prime minister's position was now "absolutely secure".

"The fact that he only received a fine for a surprise birthday cake now makes his critics look a bit stupid," said the former minister.

Labor leader Keir Starmer has meanwhile changed the tone of his call for his resignation.

Without going into detail about Johnson's personal misconduct, he now called for the Prime Minister's resignation because he was "responsible for the culture of Downing Street".

Starmer is now under investigation himself - because of the "Beergate" affair.

In order to distinguish himself from Johnson, he had announced his resignation in the event that he too had to pay a fine.