HELEN BACH COLUMN: Covid rules were for everyone, Boris

Before anyone tells me that it’s ultimately futile and damaging for my health, this is righteous anger.

I’m righteously angry with people having parties in No. 10 and its garden during lockdown.

Don’t tell me they were ‘work meetings’ or ‘just cheese and wine’! No, I’m sorry, that won’t wash.

You don’t invite around 100 people by email, tell them to bring their own booze and then have the audacity to say it was ‘work’.

It’s like people ‘testing their eyes’ at Barnard Castle all over again... but worse.

I’m going to say this again for the MPs or Government officials at the back who aren’t listening... you can’t have one rule for us and one rule for you!

I’m not the only one who’s angry.

The families of people who died in hospital who weren’t allowed to see their loved ones in their final hours, they’re angry.

Those who were only allowed to have a handful of people at a funeral or graveside and were denied the right to grieve properly, they’re angry.

The man who was yelled at by an overly-officious crematorium assistant when he broke social distancing rules to comfort his grieving mother at his father’s funeral, I imagine he’s pretty angry too.

People with relatives in care homes – some with dementia who couldn’t understand what was going on – who could only see them through glass, they’re angry.

In fact, everyone who stuck by the rules – no matter how painful and difficult that was or how damaging to their mental health – because they thought they were doing the right thing and were also terrified of being reported, prosecuted and fined if they didn’t, they will all be rightfully angry, if not incandescent with rage.

So Boris and Co, well done, you’ve managed to unite the whole nation in anger.

Stop smirking about it, apologise properly – not a mealy-mouthed ‘we’re sorry if...’ or now do the decent thing and go.

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