Patrick Christys: I find it very hard to get excited about 'partygate'

Is this the final straw for Boris? I want to know what you think. Is his birthday party a step too far?

Reports suggest that Boris Johnson gathered with 30 people in the cabinet room on his birthday where he was presented with a cake by Carrie and then had a barbecue.

Obviously a lot of people are very angry about this.

The gathering allegedly took place in June 2020 and at that time people weren’t able to visit dying relatives in hospital or hug their mother at their father’s funeral.

It does stick in the craw somewhat that the person dishing out the rules may not have been following them himself.

But I’ve got to be honest – I find it very hard to get excited about partygate. I completely understand exactly why some people really do care, they think Boris has to resign and they’re genuinely angry.

But I tell you what else I can understand…why there are other stories in town.

Why partygate isn’t the MOST important issue.

Vladimir Putin is potentially about to start world war three and we might be about to sack our Prime Minister for blowing the candles out on a Colin the Caterpillar cake. I mean…come on.

There is a cost of living crisis. People are seeing their energy bills go through the roof. They’re being forced, in many cases, to choose between heating and eating, especially the elderly.

We might be about to lose 80,000 NHS staff because, despite most of them probably having Covid antibodies, they haven’t had the jab.

A story broke yesterday afternoon about children going to secondary schools with a reading age of just six. Why? Because their learning was hampered by lockdown.

I’m more angry about the fact that these Covid rules were imposed than about the fact Boris might have broken them.

I do wonder whether or not as a country we’ve become a bit addicted to disaster and chaos. Just as we’re about to emerge out of this pandemic, the first country in Europe to do so, just as we’re staring down the barrel of normality, we’re absolutely obsessed about birthday cake from June 2020.

I actually think Boris is probably quite happy about this, because as long as we’re talking about people singing him happy birthday, we’re not talking about real problems facing the country.