Partygate

I had a low opinion of Boris as a leader but could see his attraction to some as a sort of cheeky schoolboy charm. I believe he is highly intelligent but totally self centered .. the reconstructions here are Not particularly dramatic or amazing but the sheer scale of continued ramshackle behavior at the heart of Government in perhaps the most serious time I have ever experienced in the UK in my life( I am 73) is sickening... I do think Time will show Boris as the worst Leader and most self centered Prime Minister we have had....

It does cover the period of the crisis and feature real and reconstructed footage Well worth watching and a very important record for future historians!!

As you're watching Partygate, you ask yourself 'Did this really happen?' And then you are shown the evidence to prove it from the Sue Gray Report; testimonies of family of those who died, who weren't allowed into hospital to say goodbye; film of mourners at funerals who were not permitted to comfort others. Reminders of the awful things the rest of the country was suffering, at the exact same time Johnson and his staff were living it up at 14 parties and then lied about it. This is a tough watch, but as the Covid Inquiry is deliberately kicked into the long grass, I think it's really important we're reminded of this.

Prior to watching this docudrama I was a staunch supporter of Boris. And defended the parties as work place gatherings as we hear the lady doing near to the beginning. I felt Boris had been hounded out of office unfairly. Watching this dramatisation has sowed the seed of doubt in my mind. If the parties were on the scale depicted in the drama nobody including the prime minister could possibly justify them as small work place gatherings. Perhaps I have been duped by very left wing film makers? Although the film does cite the Sue Gray report throughout to support the account it gives. The acting was appalling though.

A crass, self-congratulatory, tone-deaf, exploitative, toothless dramatisation of events which should never have been put to screen unless done so with absolute scorn & vociferous indignation.

I don't want to see quiet disapproval, tired despondency or emotional resignation (cynically resigning ourselves to this utter farce - under the belief that it's simply how things are, regardless of what happens - is lazy, complacent & precisely the nihilistic defeatism which enables it to continue, upholding the status quo we're in full acknowledgement is irrevocably broken); I want fiction to metaphorically tear these damned people limb from limb until there's nothing left of them but an amalgamation of flesh, pulled from their bloodied bones & strewn across the floor in a steaming heap of meat. Forget libel; if the story isn't courageous enough to wage literal war against these rancid, festering, corrupt politicians & their self-serving, callous compatriots - resulting in multiple potential lawsuits, alleging defamation - then the person telling it is cowardly, doing it incorrectly, undeserving of attention & I lose all respect for them.

Seriously, where was the bite?

Channel 4's entire brand is built upon the notion of being 'bold', 'risky' & 'edgy'. What happened?

This should've been a 1 hour, devastatingly excoriating evisceration; a vengeful denunciation so nasty, those at the recieving end needed a tetanus shot & stitches to physically recover.

200,000+ British citizens died as a direct result of the Conservative Party's blasé lack of leadership; a larger loss of life than the total number of deceased individuals, during the Blitz in WW2... They didn't reach their end with dignity or the compassion we know they had a right to expect; most were left alone, gasping for air, choking on their own lung fluid, scared, in pain, waiting for an ambulance that never came or on ventilators within poorly equipped hospitals exceeding capacity, manned by struggling NHS staff (deprived of suitable PPE), trying to save lives whilst keeping their own relatives at home unharmed - suppressing the mental distress caused by relentless pressure & the merciless onslaught of suffering cases, doing their part, we know folks in Number 10 wouldn't. If that doesn't warrant unadulterated furiosity, a march of bereaved families / loved ones armed with fiery torches, pitchforks & a dismantling of the very system responsible for such preventable, national slaughter (of the most vulnerable within society; the elderly & disabled)... I genuinely don't know what will.

Honestly, what was this meant to achieve? 'Partygate's' the equivalent of a creative, randomly pointing towards a disgusting scandal & patronisingly commenting "that's bad" in a flat tone of voice; yes, thank you for that profound insight (I'll cherish the invaluable contribution made forever) - yet if you've no intention of making a wider analysis of the institutions within a democracy which refuse to hold those in positions of power accountable (like, for instance, those ironically in the media), it's a meaningless gesture, devoid of the intelligence or the ability to truly get to the heart of why / how this was permitted to happen in the first place. Thus, you're part of the problem.

Therefore, why depict the grotesque parties through the lense of fiction, if not to fulfill the entire purpose of telling a tale (meeting the criteria for even the most basic premise)... To make sense of something, nonsensical? Hence, what's the motivation, other than to antagonise for the sake - offering no answers?

Do something. Say something. Stop pulling punches. Don't just visualise reports like an amateurish recreation. Use this platform. Speak up.

Ugh.

If you're looking for a sufficiently angry refutation of this government's contemptuous ineptitude & criminal negligence, watch Marc Munden's 'Help'; that lenses the disastrous pandemic response through the perspective of low paid workers who were caught up in the midst of a national crisis that literally decimated the care home population within the first wave of the UK covid outbreak; the mood is unmistakably seething, mournful, agonized, packed with raw, unaddressed grief & brimming with understandably unbridled rage... This, however? Pitifully weak attack against contemptuous villains who've earned a stronger reckoning than the one they've been frustratingly met with. People need so much better. Be better. Do better.

'Partygate' is a rather weakly comic representation of the events that brought down Boris Johnson; but also, quite literally, a deadly serious one. Right from the start it gets to one key point, when a caller to a radio-phone in offers a defence of the then Prime Minister, accused of hosting "parties" during the COVID-19 lockdowns. For sure, all social gatherings were banned, and if the makers of the laws don't follow them, how can anyone else be expected to. But if people working long hours gathered briefly to wish each other happy birthday, or had a quick drink in the garden after work, was that really so terrible? Even if wrong, you could understand how it had happened. Only, of course, it didn't happen like that. The Downing Street staff, from the top man downwards, acted with complete and reckless disregard for the law they were imposing on other people. Johnson has continued to insist that nothing occured you could really call a party; but that man is a serial liar. 'Partygate' suggests that the reason it all happened lies in the insufferable arrogance of a ruling class who take it for granted that no-one actually gets to tell them what to do, even themselves! It may still not be the worst thing that a British government has ever done; but the story speaks volumes of the contempt of our governors for the governed.