Typically, icons are known by a single name; Pele, Madonna, Bono, Diana, Prince, Ghandi. Fluffy celeb types have a mash up style nomenclature; JLo, ARod, PDiddy. Also known by a single name are a treasure trove of narcissistic leaders; Hitler, Mussolini, Trump, Franco, Castro.
And then we have Boris, BoJo, Bozza the leader of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Not quite sure where he fits in. Having gone from a lovable, laughable rogue at the London Olympics (remember the zip wire anyone?) to a man who can stand in front of an entire country and brazenly fail to accept personal responsibility for hosting and attending parties during lockdown, I think he’s managed to negotiate his way down the scale. No, I am not putting him in the same category as Hitler or Stalin, but I am saying that he has set in place some of the most punitive and draconian rules ever seen in this country. He has presided over the curbing of civil liberties using the justification of saving of lives. In doing so, he has also cost thousands of lives, but he also fractured families and relationships.
I, like most people in the UK, was prepared to “do my bit”. My bit was to stay away from my Dad after he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. He was diagnosed on the 26th March, the day lockdown measures came into force. He heard this news on his own in a hospital room where a nurse and a doctor were unable to even put their arm round him. It was his birthday 2 days later. We all knew it was likely to be his last birthday but he spent it sat in his conservatory whilst my sister sat in the garden with a cake she’d made but he was reluctant to eat (because you know, Covid). Me? I was 140 miles away, shielding having been identified as clinically vulnerable. Wonder what japes Boris and his mates were up to?
Technically, according to the rules (the rules for the proletariat, not the big dogs that is), I shouldn’t have seen my dad ever again. He died on the 24th June 2020. However, I did visit my dad 6 weeks after his initial diagnosis but by that time, the cancer had spread to his brain, and he really wasn’t my dad any more. I missed those precious precious weeks where he was ok. I missed the opportunity to hug him tightly before hugging became too painful for him. I missed out on those intimate round the dinner table conversations where, lubricated by wine and good food, he would have share his memories and I would have locked his memories and his belly laughs into my own vault to cherish once he’d died. He missed being able to get his family and friends over for a glass of champagne to laugh and cry and joke and say goodbye. He missed going for a last dinner and lunch at his most favourite pubs and restaurants and that one last drive in his open top car through the New Forest and along the coast. He was told his cancer was terminal and he couldn’t even live whilst he was dying. Forget all the medical stuff like not really being offered palliative treatment, like being cared for by people wearing masks, and having to sit 2 metres away from another human whilst they ask where you would like to die. Forget all that, as horrific as it is, what has bought me to tears today as I listened to PMQs, is that my dad didn’t have any joy in the last weeks of his life. He was on his own day and night, trapped in his house whilst our leaders, so removed from the realities of any of this, thought they could have a few “work parties”. Whether or not Boris saw the invite to the garden party, whether he thought it was a work party is utterly missing the point. If he had any semblance of what millions of families were going through at his behest, he would have known in his heart and soul that it was wrong.
I did see my dad again twice more. Having agonised about where he was safest and where he could have visitors, we arranged for him to go to a hospice three days before he died. Covid rules meant only my sister could visit and she did see him the day he died, wearing full PPE. I said a rushed goodbye to him in the back of an ambulance. And that breaks my fucking heart. I had sort of come to terms with all this, but seeing Boris Johnson and his utter lack of remorse cracked my heart wide open again. I want to scream and shout and stamp my feet yelling “ITS NOT FAIR”. Because it isn’t. Its not right, its not fair and I do not want to be led by people who have no moral compass.
So Boris, for every single person who feels like I do right now, please do the right thing and, as per Malcom Tucker from The Thick of IT, fuck the fuck off. And if you think I am following any more of your bullshit rules, you can do one.