Trips to Barnard Castle when we were meant to be in lockdown. Office snogging and groping while we were meant to social distance, and now banned Christmas parties.
We’ve known for some time that when it comes to lockdown and Covid, it’s one rule for us and another for them. Time and time again the Government has shown complete disregard for their own rules and utter contempt for the public. Their mantra is do as we say not as we do.
And now, we know not only did they break their own rules, they were laughing their heads off at us while they were doing it.
Through the excellent reporting of Daily Mirror Political Editor Pippa Crerar, we learned that last year there was a Christmas party at No10 Downing Street.
From the very place we were given orders about what to do and how to behave, No10 staff were having a jolly knees-up with cheese and wine and Secret Santa.
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All this while families across the country were unable to say proper goodbyes to their dying loved ones, and people couldn’t see their families because of Covid restrictions – by that point I hadn’t seen my own family for several months.
A few days earlier, while children faced a Christmas under lockdown rules, staff at the Department for Education got together for a party with “drinks and canapes”. Not even Armando Iannucci could have come up with something as unimaginable as this in a plotline for political spoof The Thick of It.
On Tuesday, a leaked video emerged of Downing Street aides laughing and joking about a rule-breaking Christmas party with one saying the “fictional” party was a “business meeting”.
The country is fuming. We are being taken for absolute mugs. We know it, they know it, heck, even Ant and Dec know it. The behaviour of people who are supposed to be in charge is an absolute insult to everyone who made sacrifices and followed the rules.
Leadership is about being an example to others, sacrifice, and putting other people before yourself. Just ask the Queen, who at 94, sat alone in church to bury Prince Philip, her husband of more than 70 years.
It’s a disgrace. I’d like to think there will be consequences, but there won’t. At Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris announced some sort of “investigation”. Once again they’re marking their own homework.
Johnson’s spokeswoman Allegra Stratton has resigned and a few people may be fired, but now it just feels like they’re moving the deckchairs on the Titanic.
People will not forget this in a hurry. Let’s see who’s laughing come the next election.
Find lost kids living in pain
Like Susanna Reid on GMB this week, I was moved to tears listening to the grandmother of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes talk about how her attempts to save the little boy were ignored.
She said: “Something is broken in this system and something needs fixing.”
I have a son the same age as Arthur and I just can’t imagine how anyone, let alone his own father and stepmother, could be so wicked and cruel. Hearing how he suffered is heartbreaking.
According to schools inspector Ofsted, there are thousands of so-called “ghost children” who have vanished from the UK education system.
Something must be done immediately to ensure they aren’t in harm’s way. If that means a massive recruitment drive for more social workers then so be it. This can never be allowed to happen again.
