Tom Harwood: People who were working in the same room as each other having a piece of cake is not Watergate

I want to bring you a story, published by The Times.

It read: Boris Johnson celebrated his 56th birthday with a small gathering in the cabinet room.

Rishi Sunak and a group of aides sang him Happy Birthday before they tucked into a Union Jack cake.

The celebrations provided a brief respite after another gruelling week.

Well why am I bring this up? We heard about the cake party, this week. Journalists across this country were appalled and outraged. Right?

Notice the date. 20th June 2020. During that first lockdown.

It was so uncontroversial that a national newspaper reported it without batting an eyelid. Everyone read it, and no one cared.

It was not remotely controversial.

Why? Probably because everyone else was doing the same! Of course key workers who were in work seeing their colleagues anyway would on occasion have wine and cake. Did they think it was against the rules? No.

Did The Times or anyone else who read that story at the time think it was against the rules? No!

I know of Teachers who would have a glass of wine in the staffroom together at the end of a long hard week. Good on them.

Nurses who would use a break to film a TikTok dance or two together. Good on them.

Journalists who would share a cake upon a colleagues birthday. Fair enough.

I wonder to what extent we have descended into a bout of national hysteria. Things that were innocuously reported a year and a half ago, that no one cared about a year and a half ago, are now driving fury.

Is it perhaps time to take a step back and dispassionately realise that people who were working in the same room as each other anyway having a piece of cake is not after all Watergate.

I know it's controversial to say at this point, but out of the heat of this hysteria, I think a lot more people will agree too.