Rules for thee, but not for me.
Some reports indicate he broke three of the rules:
- Leaving the house while symptomatic.
- Traveling, and staying overnight elsewhere.
- Having a person (his kid) go from one household to another. (This one is perhaps understandable if it were not for that household being 260 miles away)
The thing that's cutting through the usual "for fuch sake this again?" desensitized apathy for me is seeing the real world pain this is giving people who have observed the lockdown in the most extreme of circumstances reaction to this news.
I'm seeing people on my facebook saying they could not be at a loved ones side as they lay dying in hospital, going to a funeral only ten other people were permitted to attend and look at the coffin knowing they could not be there as they died alone and now also knowing all the people who dearly wanted to be there at the service but were not allowed were also in their own way suffering too, with no wake, and no contact even between the attendees.
And the only thing that gave them strength through it all was knowing that, even in those most extreme of circumstances, they were doing the right thing by complying by the rules of Lockdown, that the deceased would be proud of them knowing that they had helped to control the spread of the virus that had claimed them before their time.
Then you get "Cumbag" as I have seen one person now refer to him, state that his actions were "reasonable and legal" and government ministers saying "caring for your wife and child is not a crime".
Caring for someone close isn't a crime, no, but it is a thing
many have been denied in lockdown under threats of substantial fines which, basically, does make it a crime, and in circumstances a lot more extreme than those highlighted as reason to travel 260 miles while ill with the contagion.
From where I am sitting there is little doubt taking the line of "caring isn't a crime" has
seriously undermined their authority to ask for cooperation with restrictions, as there are so many cases people would view as having been more extreme, which would have justified their breaking the rules, such as their loved ones dying alone. After all, caring for them is not a crime, is it?