Patrick Christys: We need to get over Party-gate, it’s becoming pathetic now

We need to get over Party-gate.

We need to move on. It’s becoming pathetic now.

For weeks our news agenda and political discourse has been dominated by cheese and wine.

If it was all quiet on the Western Front I could understand it but the reality is that it’s not.

Far from it. We have a cost of living crisis, Russia may be about to invade Ukraine, there are still grooming gangs operating throughout the UK, there’s record illegal immigration in the Channel, the terror threat is severe, there’s a knife crime epidemic, I could go on…. And yet all the journalists and politicians can talk about is parties in Downing Street.

Yesterday, Sky News interviewed a four-year-old about whether or not she thought that Boris Johnson was a ‘naughty boy’…and mid-interview she forgot what her parents had told her to say.

It was toe-curling. Is that the best we’ve got, is it?

While everybody remains obsessed about parties that allegedly took place a year or more ago, there are very real issues facing this country.

Important issues, issues that affect us all. Inflation is a bigger issue than cheese and wine.

So is illegal immigration, so is the terror threat… I find it absolutely pathetic that while all of this is going on, our entire political energy as a nation appears to be focussed on either Boris Johnson trying to keep his job, or the opposition trying to force him to resign.

Those Red Wall MPs who claim to be so principled that they have to hand in a letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson should give their heads a wobble.

I’m sure that their constituents care more about how much they are paying for their energy than whether or not Boris Johnson got sloshed in his own back garden with his staff, even if it was illegal.

I’m sure they care more about what’s happening in the Channel, or whether or not their children are safe walking the streets…

As long as we’re sitting here talking about Boris Johnson’s rather squiffy interpretation of the Covid rules, nothing else is getting sorted.

Nothing else is getting done. Vladimir Putin must be rubbing his hands with glee.

He’s potentially about to start World War 3 and in Great Britain, all we can talk about is cheese and wine. Xi Xinping must be over the moon – while he slowly but surely ensures China takes over the world, we were too busy thinking about whether or not some people in Downing Street got illegally leathered.

The fact is, it’s easier to focus on a party than it is to actually tackle the major issues facing this country right now.

And that’s why they’re all obsessed with it. In a way, I imagine Boris Johnson is quite pleased about this.

All he gets asked about now is parties, nobody is holding his feet to the fire when it comes to the big green agenda, the tax increases, whether or not sending the Navy into the channel will actually work when it comes to combating illegal immigration…

The fact that most politicians and the vast majority of the media think that parties in Downing Street is the most important issue of the day, shows just how out of touch they really are.