PARTYGATE hasn’t gone away. But for the time being – and despite the BBC’s best efforts – it has been eclipsed by fears of the biggest military conflagration in Europe since World War Two.
Downing Street’s mid-lockdown frolics were a punch in the guts for all those who obeyed the draconian rules set by Number Ten.
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They won’t be forgotten.
But they are dropping down the news headlines as Russian tanks prepare to roll.
Boris Johnson is channelling his inner Winston Churchill, attacking Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin and actually leading the NATO alliance with military aid to embattled Ukraine.
Alone among European leaders, he was hailed last week as a hero in Ukraine’s besieged capital, Kyiv.
“Thank you very much to the British government, thank you very much to Boris Johnson,” cried its emotional mayor, ex-boxer Vitali Klitschko.
US President Joe Biden chimed in, promising America would stay with Britain “to the end”.
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By contrast, Germany was savaged for blocking the sale of missiles from Lithuania to Ukraine.
Berlin’s reputation is in tatters, with new Chancellor Olaf Scholz accused of selling out his allies in return for a dodgy Siberian gas pipeline.
And France’s tinpot Napoleon, Emmanuel Macron, has been caught sans culottes in a stitch-up with Moscow over the heads of angry Ukrainian voters.
Perhaps to his surprise, Boris Johnson finds himself winning applause abroad, if not at home — an accolade he could only dream of two weeks ago.
Even the Labour Party is rallying behind BoJo’s bugle call for a united NATO and EU diplomatic front.
Sir Keir Starmer, eager to wrap himself in the Union Jack, is gung-ho.
“We stand united in the UK whatever other challenges and arguments we have with the Government,” he says.
“When it comes to Russian aggression, we stand together as political parties.”
Starmer is desperate to exorcise the ghost of pro-Russian “peace” campaigner Jeremy Corbyn, for whom Salisbury poisoner Vladimir Putin could do no wrong.
But Sir Keir may have gone too far for some Shadow ministers over just how loyal Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition should be to the embattled PM.
Quizzed by Sky News’s Trevor Phillips yesterday, Labour health spokesman Wes Streeting repeatedly refused to say he backed Boris.
“We stand four-square behind our NATO allies,” stressed the ferociously ambitious Mr Streeting.
SCREECHES OF ANGER
“We support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”
Is he after his boss’s job?
Mr Streeting instead tried to smear Boris over allegations of Russian cash for Tory Party funds.
But this will have little traction with voters.
Especially since the PM has another trick up his sleeve today as he ends two years of pandemic panic and leaves people to use common sense on Covid.
Amid screeches of anger from left-wing control freaks, Britain will be among the first countries in the world to emerge from the viral nightmare and return to something like life as normal.
We can forget about social distancing, mask-wearing and self-isolation and start putting the bug behind us.
Millions of civil servants will be told to throw off their Work From Home duvets and start earning their keep.
We still face a cost-of-living crisis but it looks slightly less threatening as unemployment falls to a near record low, household spending booms and foreign money pours into UK firms.
It’s not going to be easy, especially for Sun readers.
The cost of food, petrol and heating is soaring. Some firms will never reopen. But it could have been worse.
Some economists — no fans of Boris Johnson — now predict the bounce back could prove to be the Tories’ trump card in 2024.
Soon the preposterous £1million Scotland Yard probe into Partygate will announce its conclusion.
We will find out if the PM has been slapped with a fixed penalty notice.
But whatever happens, this Prime Minister has no intention of resigning.
And with Covid receding like a bad memory and Russia goose-stepping on EU borders, it is hard to see Tory MPs rushing into a disastrous leadership contest any time soon.
Tearful interviews
HAVE you noticed how every TV news bulletin now carries a tearful interview?
It might be a hospital patient waiting months for a life-saving NHS operation.
Or a care worker at risk of losing their job. Maybe a victim of crime.
In each case it is hard not to sympathise with the bereft individual who crumbles in the face of such heart-wrenching questions as: “And how did THAT make you feel?”
Interestingly, the agency responsible for their grief invariably turns out to be a branch of this “callous, incompetent, penny-pinching” Tory government.
