Three cheers for the blind eye of the police: where would our leader be without it? | Marina Hyde

A Tory MP has demanded to know: Was the Met weak, gullible, incompetent or stupid?' The answer is yes - on all counts

Naturally, you'll adore the pictures of Boris Johnson raising a glass at a Downing Street party during lockdown. It's like a Holbein or something, depicting a corpulent man surrounded by all the esoteric accoutrements of state power: the red box, the Barefoot pinot grigio. The Sourz Apple. Just out of shot? Either an astrolabe, or the booze suitcase.

Furthermore, you have to respect how the Metropolitan police get to the bottom of nothing except the barrel. It's truly inspirational to think their 460,000 Partygate" performance piece has not yet reached its final form. That will come as early as today, when a number of the officers tasked with not spotting Boris Johnson in a series of piss-up photos get signed off with stress. Only when they've been on the sick for two years, then retired with a full pension but also returned to a high-paying station desk job, will Partygate have attained the British establishment gold standard.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist