For weeks, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has managed to wriggle out of admitting that he attended law-breaking parties during lockdown by telling everyone to wait for an internal report to be released. Now, the police have effectively instructed the author of that report to take out anything that could incriminate the prime minister.

As more and more evidence of the lockdown-busting parties has appeared in the British press over the past few weeks, Johnson has been clinging to the absurd position that he can't say if he attended the gatherings until a civil service investigation tells him whether or not he was there.

The report was due to be released this week until a bombshell statement from London's Metropolitan Police on Friday morning confirmed that it had asked the author, senior civil servant Sue Gray, to make "minimal reference" in her report to events that could "prejudice" the force's own investigation into lockdown breaches by the government

That means that Gray's report, if it's ever released, will be gutted of all of the most damaging allegations against the prime minister. The Met investigation could take months, and, if it finds that Johnson did not break the law, the force will be under no obligation to explain its working. The story that, at one point, looked like it could result in the prime minister being forced from office could simply be left to fizzle out.

Johnson's enemies, of course, smell a rat. The Met held off from investigating the damning reports until earlier this week, when the publication of Gray's report appeared to be imminent. The opening of the police investigation now appears to have defanged the report just as it looked as if it could have threatened Johnson's future.