No, people are not bored of Partygate and not moving on – because no one will ever forgot those lockdown times. A very real fear of death for themselves and others kept almost everyone obedient to the letter of the law, after the sternest of warnings by Boris Johnson himself. Imagine if they had known then that Downing Street was partying on 13 November, almost a month before the first vaccination was administered, long before that protection saved the day.
The photos show Johnson raising a glass at a leaving do for his head of communications, Lee Cain. The Metropolitan police found that this wasn’t worthy of a fine for the prime minister – but that it was for someone else who had attended the same event. Nor was Johnson fined for all the other parties he attended where underlings took the rap. That makes the Daily Mail’s splash last Friday, designed to exonerate Johnson and castigate the police, look rather more apt today: “What a farcical waste of time and £460,000.”
