LOCKDOWN [Phase 1] CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 76 – Saturday, 30th May

I’m still furious about the fact that Cummings is still in his position after he has been shown to have broken the lockdown guidelines.  He formed the rules; he should resign or be sacked.

     If I am furious about the fact that Cummings is holding on, I am sickened by the continuingly awful performance of the man who calls himself the Prime Minister. 

     His inability to articulate a convincing argument in the briefings and the embarrassingly inept responses to questioning revealing his shocking lack of detail in his understanding of his briefs used to be the basis for the reasons that I detest this shallow apology of a concerned politician having anything to do with the levers of power – but now I think that his demeaning protection of Cummings has taken pride of place in my reasons to despise the man.

     It is clear that Cummings should be fired, he is a glaring example of the ‘one rule for us and another for the rest’, he is a self proclaimed populist and disruptor, but in the case of his lockdown misdemeanours he has behaved like a typical member of the elite and the establishment (with a small ‘e’) has come to his aid.

     The feeling of the public however does not match that of the sometime prime minister (who has now surely forfeited his right to capital letters for the office that he has so demeaned) and the way that he has slavishly protected his advisor.  Too many members of the public have done exactly as the guidelines suggested and have suffered the consequences for them to be anything like sympathetic to the so-called travails of an over privileged git.

     Even though I am resident in Catalonia, I feel personally slighted by the government.  I have abided by the rules for over ten weeks, not only for my own safety, but also for the safety of others: the simple logic of safety.  But that sort of logic is only for the little people of whom Cummings is not, of course, one.

     I do not think that the feeling of being cheated will go away and Johnson’s government (if we can call it that) will be forever tainted.  Unfortunately the British electorate doesn’t seem to have many scruples about accepting tainted goods and so my hopes for the future are few.

     Quite apart from the criminally inept mismanagement of the viral crisis, when I really want to depress myself, I start thinking about what mess they are going to make of Brexit.  Silly me, they have already made a mess of it, I wonder what sort of monumentally, catastrophic balls up they are going to make of it.

     Whatever else this crisis has illustrated, one thing is abundantly clear, the personnel that form the government is of woefully limited ability.

Castelldefels is getting ready for the tourist season.  Restaurants are partially open and when I passed the centre of the beach part of Castelldefels there were people queuing for places in the limited dining accommodation available.  To the untrained eye things looked like a normal late May Saturday evening.  There were few masks and little to no physical distancing – but there again, we are allowed to meet in groups of up to 10!

     Neither Toni nor I are clear about how the rules change on Monday, when we go from Level 1 to Level 2.  What new delights at playing at freedom will that allow us!