Just gonna tell the lady who ran the corner shop near me who didn't have the means to keep her business afloat during the lockdowns that Downing Street had good reasons for hosting a BYOB shindig last May.
Gonna gently explain to the people who couldn't be with their dying loved ones in their last moments, or attend their funerals afterwards, that as horrific and inhuman as that experience was, the government and their staff also had a pretty rough couple of months there.
Gonna sit down with the young people who continue to endure intense disruption to their education and social lives during their most formative years, that events with 100 attendees are okay if you happen to work in the City of Westminster.
Gonna make sure all the healthcare workers who had, and continue to have, their bodies, minds and souls destroyed by working through an unceasing crisis for two years and counting, understand that they too can have a party to relax...ooooh...eventually? Maybe?
Gonna make it clear to my mother, who I've seen once in two years, that I too would have liked to "take advantage of the nice weather" or whatever by visiting her in May 2020, but sadly I'm just a normal person who has to abide by the laws of the land.
I'm sure all those people will understand. I'm sure they get the important distinction between their own situation and that of ministers and their lackeys.
I'm sure the clinically vulnerable who have never stopped shielding are sympathetic. I'm sure the people who endured lockdown trapped in abusive home lives totally get it.
I'm sure every teacher, every parent, forced to give the children in their care some semblance of a normal life in an impossible and terrifying situation can totally see where those guys are coming from.
Haha remember when we couldn't buy any toilet roll? Or basic foodstuffs? Remember when we were limited to only buying one of anything to protect supplies? Remember how fun that was? Good times. Good times.
Remember all those tiny sacrifices, those little indignities and sufferances you were subjected to? Because you believed it was for the common good? Remember counting how many people were in your group? Remember sitting two metres apart in your garden?
Remember being "in a bubble" with another household? Remember all those rules that seemed totally arbitrary and even counter-productive at times? Well, it turns out no one in government ever seriously thought you'd do any of it.
And they never bothered either. It was all just PR. And, sure, you had to postpone your wedding, or your child never met one of their grandparents, or you endured two years of slow psychological harm as you became increasingly insular and antisocial...
@smolrobots My eldest did a throat swab that triggered vomit, but did the nasal swab afterwards anyway, because wasting NHS issued testing material is bad. Sikhs shaved. Quakers didn't Meet. Kids had no birthday parties. Spouses teaching were separated to maintain separate school bubbles.