SUE Gray needs a holiday. In fact, we all need a holiday. Except Dominic Raab. He already had one, when he was Foreign Secretary, and the Taliban were taking control of Afghanistan. Remember?

I suggest Boris Johnson might want to take a break too. A really long one, away from Westminster, while his MPs decide what to do with him. Then again, if we’re waiting for that, he might be on holiday forever.

In all seriousness, the Tories have had a torrid time in the last two years. Entirely of their own making, but torrid nonetheless. Their leader, our Prime Minister, literally partied while people died. Then he nearly died of Covid himself, but that doesn’t seem to have curbed the lawbreaking in Downing Street. If a brush with death didn’t change his behaviour, it is hard to see how Sue Gray’s damning report can.

Under Boris Johnson, Downing Street has not only become the most penalised address in the country for breaking Covid laws, but appears to have been successfully turned in to a form of Bullingdon Club. The eloquent and irate Chris Bryant, Labour MP, summed it up in the Commons yesterday when he said that under Boris Johnson, No.10 has become "a cesspit full of arrogant, entitled narcissists.”

The Gray report makes grim reading in this regard – staff fighting with one another, partying until 4am, vomiting, throwing wine on the walls, singing karaoke and, possibly worst of all, treating their lower-paid cleansing and security colleagues with disrespect. Anyone who has watched ‘Anatomy of a Scandal’ (and if you haven’t, you should) might believe they were reading part of the show’s script rather than an account of real events. Truly life imitating fiction.

While the report doesn’t explicitly state what form this disrespect takes, the BBC’s Panorama programme on Tuesday night provided a glimpse into what kinds of things have been happening. One insider who attended some of the raucous events explained that the ‘custodian’ (a security guard to ordinary people like us) was mocked and ridiculed for asking people to leave or go outdoors.

“They were laughing at him”, the source said, explaining that this poor guy, just trying to do his job, was astonished to see the extent of parties going on during a global pandemic.

Then there was cleaning staff, expected to tidy up the bottles of booze and congealed sandwiches from the night before, while being subject to abuse.

On top of partygate, the Tories have had several of their number quit in the past six months – Owen Paterson for paid lobbying, Imran Khan after being convicted of sexually abusing a child, and Neil Parish, who was caught watching pornography in the Commons chamber. Not to mention the MP who is currently nowhere to be seen after being arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault, over a seven-year period, while in office. The party lost almost 400 councillors in the last local elections, and are predicted to lose the upcoming by-elections triggered when Khan and Parish vacated their seats. If the pattern continues, the next general election will be a disaster for the Tories and could usher in a new Labour era.

Despite this, Johnson clings on, issuing apology after grovelling apology, and polishing his brass neck on the way out the door.

Many people are tearing their hair out at this point, wondering why on earth Tory backbenchers haven’t had enough of Johnson already, and chucked him out like the empties after Wine Time Fridays at No10.

“No obvious successor”, one told me. Another said they are trying to “gauge the mood” before deciding whether to submit their letter of no confidence. It would seem they are all waiting for each other, and therefore nobody is doing anything.

While the Prime Minister made his statement in the Commons yesterday, barely any Tory MPs stood up to challenge him. The Tory whips, notorious for their discipline, were being very generous too and texted all MPs in the morning to say they would be considering any applications for ‘slips’ – when an MP can’t vote as they are unable to be in parliament. Why, you wonder, would they be encouraging their colleagues NOT to come to parliament?

Many who did attend, including former PM Theresa May, left the chamber immediately after PMQs. They wanted to be anywhere but there, it appeared.

The issue with this is that it makes the entire party look complicit. It’s as if every single MP is okay with the fact their leader has become the first PM in history to have been found to have broken the law while in office, and by the looks of it, also misled the Commons about what happened.

One colleague said to me this week: “Truth and decency are no longer part of the Tories’ vocabulary”. I think many people would agree given their apparent paralysis.

It is also striking that not one person within the Conservative party thinks they could do a better job than Johnson. Maybe they do, and don’t want to show their hand yet, or perhaps they are hoping someone else puts their head above the parapet and challenges Johnson instead. Again, waiting for someone else to make the first move. Again, paralysis.

The SNP have urged Douglas Ross to “grow a backbone” and tell Johnson to quit, again. While growing a backbone might be a bit of a challenge, he could do a reverse ferret and resubmit his letter of no confidence. This would undoubtedly draw further insults from Blackford and Co. though, who would accuse him of indecision and incompetence. He can’t win either way.

Maybe that is also the issue here. Tory MPs are too busy worried about their own reputations, careers and the implications of any perceived insubordination that they are just incapable of taking action against Johnson.

Not only have the Prime Minister and his cronies brought the office into disrepute, MPs’ lack of meaningful action against him flushes the whole of British politics further into the gutter.