Partygate: If you break rules, there are consequences, unless you're Prime Minister and you 'get away with it' - Christa Ackroyd

I know I should have sat myself down in front of the telly with a pen and paper and made notes. That’s my job. But I didn’t.

As Boris droned on and on with his grovelling excuse for an apology, I could barely contain my apathy.

We have heard it all before. And the long-awaited report from the now famous Sue Gray told us nothing we didn’t know.

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Roughly translated, it read: Boris, his staff and many others in his control didn’t give a damn about us.

CHANCE BLOWN: Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues to treat us for fools after the publication of the long-awaited Sue Gray report, says Christa Ackroyd. Picture: Leon Neal/PACHANCE BLOWN: Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues to treat us for fools after the publication of the long-awaited Sue Gray report, says Christa Ackroyd. Picture: Leon Neal/PA
CHANCE BLOWN: Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues to treat us for fools after the publication of the long-awaited Sue Gray report, says Christa Ackroyd. Picture: Leon Neal/PA

They cared only about themselves when the rest of us were worried sick about our loved ones, living in isolation, or worse still dying alone.

And his words about what we now know was an endless round of parties fell on deaf ears in my household at least. When I could be bothered to listen, all I heard sickened me to my stomach.

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We the electorate are not stupid. And excuses such as it was only right and proper that they gave a well-deserved send-off to those leaving the service won’t wash either.

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There were thousands who wanted to give their loved ones a good send-off, not at a party but at their funeral.

Thousands who wanted to raise a glass to their dearest departed who couldn’t and therefore didn’t. They couldn’t see their loved ones in their dying moments.

They couldn’t see them when they had died and they couldn’t surround themselves with family and friends for comfort.

For them this was not a leaving do after working hard during the pandemic – millions of people worked hard but did hospitals, delivery companies, shops, undertakers or teachers throw a party to thank a colleague if they left for pastures new? No, they didn’t.

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Because the same people who were enjoying themselves irrespective of the laws they had made insisted we couldn’t.

In York, a group of 19 hard-working staff at a hospice for the dying, who must have found the job doubly hard whilst masked, gowned and looking after patients who were not allowed to have their loved ones with them, gathered in a pub garden the night before restrictions were lifted.

They shouldn’t have done. Though if, as one of the hospice carers, a woman who has worked at St Leonard’s for years says, they were in groups of six and socially distanced, did they truly deserve to lose their jobs or be demoted?

I don’t know the full circumstances of the York hospice gathering, but let’s face it, if it were not for the diligence of members of my own profession, the press, we wouldn’t have known about the Downing Street parties either.

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Parties which Boris Johnson at first denied and now says he either wasn’t there or were necessary.

Parties at which so much was drunk that wine was chucked up the walls, altercations broke out and cleaners were left to clear up the vomit and treated with disdain. Now that really is sick.

Boris Johnson never had any intention of resigning so the fact he hasn’t should come as no surprise.

What is a surprise is that he still continues with the excuses for what was a breach of the rules and a breach of trust.

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As for the notion that he is now appointing a no doubt highly paid person at Downing Street to ensure the highest of standards are observed, sorry Prime Minister but that was your job and you blew it.

Take it on the chin and know you are now treading on very thin ice as far as the electorate and your own party is concerned.

As for his advisers, one of whom advised against such gatherings, perhaps listen to them for a change.

Another said at the time “looks like we got away with it”, but you didn’t, thanks to a group of journalists who tenaciously brought us the truth, when the truth was bent beyond recognition.

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There was no need for a Sue Gray report. Because there was no need for a party. And if anyone in office, particularly one which is supposed to be the highest in the land, was invited to one, it was up to him to say no. And to put a stop to them.

There is perhaps one vacancy which should be advertised in the immediate future, a head of technology.

If little old ladies learned how to stay in touch without meeting in person, if schoolchildren were forced to spend hours in front of a computer screen for online learning, if doctors and specialists consulted via video (which, by the way, has to stop now) and workers worked from their kitchen tables, then surely the powers that be could have done the same.

Of course they could, they simply chose not to.

So, as my dad would say, buck up your ideas, Boris, and get on with the job you are paid to do. Because if you don’t, then we, the British public, are watching.

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As for those who lost their job at a hospice in York, do I have sympathy? Some, yes.

If the Prime Minister has got away with it, then they must feel pretty aggrieved that they did not. Especially when the actions taken have left the hospice short of carers for the dying.

But rules are rules. And if you break them there are consequences.

Unless, of course, you are the Prime Minister of Great Britain, which this week feels just a little less great than it used to be.

If he is not careful, then Boris Johnson will soon have the pleasure of planning a leaving party of his own.