THE “greased piglet”, as David Cameron once memorably described Boris Johnson, has once again slipped through the grip of his opponents.

The Met Police have wound up their £460,000 “partygate” investigation and Mr Johnson has got away with just one fine – not enough to force him to resign, even though he presided over serial law breaking in his office and became the first Prime Minister ever to be fined for breaking the law.

Not just any old law, but one he wrote himself.

While Mr Johnson is an undoubted winner, there are three obvious losers. Firstly, the police, who were reluctant to investigate what turned out to be extravagant law-breaking that went on under their noses, and their conclusions seem frankly bizarre. For example, one analyst has summarised their findings as saying that the Prime Minister “attended six illegal gatherings but attended five of them legally”.

The second loser is Rishi Sunak, whose fine started a downward spiral in his political fortunes – although clearly not in his financial fortunes. He turned up early for one meeting and was fined which seems a little unfair given the way Mr Johnson was bumbling through illegal gatherings without being penalised.

And the third loser is Dominic Cummings, who tried to orchestrate Mr Johnson’s downfall out of revenge.

Still, with the Gray report yet to come, Mr Johnson isn’t completely clear yet, but it would surprise no one if he slid through her criticisms of his leadership as if they did not matter.

With Keir Starmer still sweating on Durham police’s reinvestigation of his alleged misdemeanour, “partygate” has damaged British politics badly, particularly in the eyes of those who lost loved ones in painfully lonely circumstances while the rule-makers in Downing Street were holding law-breaking parties.