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@RishiSunak, @MattHancock, @DominicRaab today issued co-ordinated statements lecturing us not to “politicise” Cummings actions and not to criticise him in order to to “score points”. We were to look hard at ourselves in the mirror before doing that. Here is the problem with that
The problem for those minister is that most of the people who are angry about what he did aren’t “point-scoring” opposition politicians. They are:
1. Other parents who’ve encountered the same problem of being ill and needing to look after their children, but who stayed put because that was the rule.
2. Children whose own parents have died, but who couldn’t see them to say goodbye, or even hold a proper funeral because that was the rule.
3. New parents who have had children in the last two months, and have never been able to introduce those children to anyone in their family because that was the rule.
4. Parents and children with vulnerable family members who they have not been able to see or care for in two months because that was the rule.
There is nothing party political about this and it is an insult to everyone who has tried hard and suffered pain to maintain the lockdown for cabinet ministers to frame it as such.
We were angry about Calderwood, Ferguson, and Gaiman. We were angry with Stephen Kinnock when he visited his dad on a family birthday too. We were angry about people from all political backgrounds, and whose political views we don’t really know at all.
We are angry not because we want to score “political points”. We are angry because there are people in prominent societal positions who think the rules that the rest of us must obey - no matter how difficult it gets - do not apply to them.
Cummings may stay. Cummings may go. I’m not actually sure that’s the story.
The story is that the government spat indignantly in your face today for daring to ask why the sacrifices that you are expected to make don’t apply to their pals.
The story is that the government spat indignantly in your face today for daring to ask why the sacrifices that you are expected to make don’t apply to their pals.
