Dear Sheryll
Yet another lockdown party at Downing Street has been exposed.
I have written to you several times in the past and I have never really got any satisfactory kind of answer as to what your feelings are about the rule-breaking parties that took place at Number 10 last year whilst millions of us had to forego seeing family and friends.
Millions of law-abiding people missed out on milestone celebrations. Women gave birth in hospital without family or partners being allowed to be with them. People died absolutely alone with nobody holding their hands or offering them comfort. People had to lay their loved ones to rest by video link. My wife’s family was one of those who had to do exactly that for an aunt who lived in Norfolk last spring. The two of us had to watch her funeral on Zoom. Can you imagine how that felt?
My own family had to miss out on caring for my elderly grandmother in her last few precious weeks on earth due to rules enforced in law by the government and associated rules imposed by the secure accommodation she lived in due to those laws. She eventually died having not being allowed to have us gathered around her for those irreplaceable hours.
We could have spent those invaluable days and hours with her, but we didn’t because we obeyed the laws that it now appears were only for the little people like us and not for big, self-important men like Boris Johnson to follow.
Can you imagine the raw seething anger we now feel seeing yet further news of Boris permitting parties at the same time as we were watching, at arm’s length, as a loved one slip away? I don’t think you can imagine or empathise with it otherwise you would be screaming for his immediate resignation, too.
To find that Number 10 had not one but several law breaking parties during the lockdown time last year is unforgivable. Boris Johnson not only knew of these parties taking place (one simply does not fail to notice a raucous party in one’s own home); but to cap it all he has been shown to have actively attended them on at least one occasion. That is the one he has been caught out for; there will almost certainly have been more, judging by his persona and previous track record and affinity for living it up.
So I ask you again, do you think it was acceptable for these parties to go ahead whilst the rest of us suffered such heartbreaking separation from loved ones?
And do you think that a man who not only permitted these law-breaking parties but then actively lied, and encouraged ministers to lie and gaslight about them is fit to be prime minister?
If he had one shred of empathy or shame he would have resigned by now. Clearly he has no thought or care other than for his own gratification.
I don’t think we deserve such a part-time prime minister with his priorities in other places. I think the country deserves better, much better in fact. I even think MPs deserve better than having to cover up and humiliate themselves in the news cycle for a career liar who has blagged and lied his way to power (this is after all a man who wrote two opposing articles on Brexit, one against brexit and one in favour before he chose the one he thought most likely to gain him power in 2016. In reality he doesn’t even genuinely believe in his signature Brexit project and only truly believes in his own career advancement).
Essentially he got to be prime minister based on lies despite being wholly unfit for the job and previously failing at ever job he ever held (terrible mayor, terrible journalist and terrible foreign secretary). And he has continued to lie and undermined trust in democracy and the rule of law every day since.
The press know the MPs who deny the parties are lying to cover for him when they defend him, the public know they are lying when they defend him and yet they still do it. It’s woeful to watch and shows little to no self respect on the part of those who continue to facilitate him for their own misguided reasons.
This whole episode has left a very bitter taste in the mouth and nothing will truly make up for it. But Boris Johnson having to own up to his misdeed and face real consequences for the first time in his life would at least be a start.
Carl Garner
Cornwall
