Boris Johnson has moaned that Partygate has been "miserable" for people in Government - and insisted he didn't eat any cake at his lockdown birthday bash.
The under-fire Prime Minister said it wouldn't be "responsible" for him to quit as he faced repeated questions over lockdown parties and whether he lied over rule-breaking in a grilling from Mumsnet users in Downing Street.
Mr Johnson said he was "very, very taken aback" to get a fine from the Metropolitan Police for his surprise birthday party in June 2020.
He insisted he didn't eat any birthday cake at the "miserable" lockdown bash in the Downing Street Cabinet Room which also led to fines for Rishi Sunak and Mr Johnson's wife Carrie.
It comes amid mounting speculation that Mr Johnson could face a no confidence vote as soon as next week as Tory anger threatened to boil over following Ms Gray's scathing report into lockdown boozing in No10 and Whitehall.
Asked if he had lost the trust of the public, Mr Johnson said: "I'm not going to deny the whole thing hasn't been a totally miserable experience for people in government and we've got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made and we've got to move forward."
The Prime Minister insisted that he believed his birthday gathering - which also featured in Sue Gray's Partygate report - was a "work event".
He added: "I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN but of course I paid it.
"I think that on why am I still here, I'm still here because we've got huge pressures economically, we've got to get on, you know, we've got the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, and we've got a massive agenda to deliver which I was elected to deliver.
"I've thought about all these questions a lot, as you can imagine, and I just cannot see how actually it'd be responsible right now - given everything that is going on simply to abandon the project which I embarked on."
Scotland Yard issued 126 fines to 83 people as part of its Partygate probe. The PM only received one fixed penalty notice despite attending a number of other events that attracted fines.
Mr Johnson sought to defend his attendance at a string of law-breaking leaving dos by saying he was trying raise morale during the pandemic.
He said: "I genuinely believed that what I was doing – and I know why people may think it’s not good enough – but what I believed I was doing was saying goodbye briefly to hard-working staff."
Asked if he preferred cake to biscuits, he said: "The cake, I did not eat a cake, if you are talking satirically about that miserable event pictured on the front pages, no cake was consumed by me."
The father-of-seven said he is "very fast" at changing nappies when discussing his life as a parent.
Mr Johnson has two young children with his wife Carrie, including 2-year-old Wilfred and baby Romy.
Asked about his parenting style, he said: "I'm doing a lot at the moment Justine, and I'm saying that without any fear of inhibition or fear of contradiction.
"I can tell you I've changed a lot of nappies recently. I'm very fast by the way."
He said his favourite bedtime stories were by Dr Seuss and then began quoting The Cat In The Hat Comes Back.
"This was no time for play, this was no time for fun, this was no time for games, there was work to be done, which is our motto in Number 10. There's work to be done," he said.
