In all my years in politics I’ve not seen the likes of this
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This is a column written by Jamie Stone MP
It is the beginning of the week, and I am writing this Harry Potter-style. That is from beneath the stairs of my home. Such is the necessary discipline of lockdown.
On Saturday I was approached by a constituent (because it is important to maintain confidentiality I can’t tell you more about this particular person) and asked what the rules were governing her husband travelling to England. I paused and frowned.
“It’s his mother. She’s dying. She hasn’t got long left and he’d like to see her to say goodbye...”
My God, life can be cruel. I said I’d look into it, but also said that I doubted whether this journey was possible. I came away a sadder man.
Now readers of this column know that I often take a wry look at events and people. If it causes thought or a smile, then that’s good enough for me.
I try to extend this approach to fellow politicians too. I go on the theory that by and large they try to do their best, and the political party they belong to is of slightly secondary importance. Put it this way, all political parties have their duff ideas and bad eggs.
But all these words said, on Sunday night I was astonished at the Prime Minister’s defence of Dominic Cummings and his refusal to sack him.
Cummings, his wife, and four year old child had driven 260 miles each way from London to Durham well after the start of lockdown.
In addition they took a 30 mile each way trip from Durham to the tourist attraction Barnard Castle.
Cummings and his wife had coronavirus symptoms, past and present, and yet they still did this. But they kept quiet about it – until the truth came out last weekend.
“Oh it’s natural for a father who needs childcare to do this...” was Boris’s explanation on Sunday night.
Well you try telling that to a single parent holed up in a city flat with three children when a sudden cough appears.
You try telling that to the good people of the Far North who are doing their level best to obey the rules and defeat the virus!
The instant Boris ended his press conference on Sunday I started getting enraged emails.
“Mr Stone, could I please ask you as my MP, that you request a formal parliamentary enquiry into the acts or omissions of this advisor to the PM, in relation to his trip to Durham and the surrounding area during the Covid lockdown. There cannot be a separate system of rules for the Prime Minister’s advisor, when we all as a nation are trying to work to the rules,to stop the spread of this virus.”
That was one of the mildest. You should see what folk with elderly “at risk” relatives say. Or people with friends and relations who are NHS frontline.
Although I’ve only been an MP for less than three years, I have been in politics a long time and I have never seen anything like this.
This is last Monday. By the time you read this online, or in the paper itself, things may have changed. Cummings may have been fired. But here I make a longer lived prediction, one that will outlast the career of the wretched Cummings. Boris’s was a fatal misjudgement on Sunday.
Cavalier, uncaring and irresponsible in his approach within himself, Boris had always carried the seeds of his own destruction. On Sunday evening they were sown.
