There’s an old expression that goes, there’s no fool like an old fool. As I am pretty much in the old category these days, I am sure there are those who look at me in that way, with some justification. There are two old fools making the news today.
First, the prime minister’s father, Stanley Johnson. The old boy has made a decent living out of being Boris Johnson’s father and in recent months has gone to great lengths to embarrass him, initially by flying to Greece when he wasn’t supposed to and now doing his shopping without a mask. It is true that you cannot be responsible for the actions of your elders, but it strikes me that if Johnson can’t even convince his old man to look after others by wearing a mask, then good luck trying to persuade those who aren’t close family members to do the same. And then, there’s Jeremy Corbyn.
Lest we forget, Corbyn steered the Labour Party to its worst defeat since 1935 and now he is back in the role he most enjoys, that of the eternal rebel. As well as that, Labour’s Magic Grandpa can move back into the cosy embrace of the middle class luvvies who, more than anyone, revere him in ways many of us find incomprehensible. To that end, Corbyn fulfilled both his aims last week by voting against Labour at every opportunity and being present at a dinner party of nine people.
But hang on: nine people? There was me thinking that the government had imposed a rule of six, whereby anyone attempting to hold a larger gathering would be sent to the gallows (it was something like this). Anyway, a photo has emerged of Corbyn sitting at the top of a table at which everyone else seems to be at least 30 years younger than him. He’s broken the law, just like Stanley Johnson did. Will Inspector Knacker be paying a visit?
The long arm of the law would certainly clamp down on Wayne Proletariat in his council house if someone had dobbed him in and doubtless the red top newspapers would be livid. Whilst the right wing red tops are not too bothered by Johnson’s excesses, I can’t help but thinking it’s one rule for the affluent middle and upper classes and quite another for the rest of us.
I certainly feel that way. And when Dominic Cummings, having helped draw up the stay at home rules, decided they did not apply to him, many of us concluded that we too would live our lives on the basis of our own choices and private risk assessments. There will be others, I must acknowledge, who have never bothered with government rules, their numbers now swollen by both the hard of thinking who have been persuaded by cranks and lunatics that COVID-19 is a hoax and by even greater numbers who have simply had enough. That’s having had enough of COVID-19 and the upper orders who do whatever they like.
I’ll be convinced that we are all in this together when both Johnson and Corbyn get clobbered with hefty fines for their rule-breaking, although given that both are very wealthy men, it will represent loose change for both of them. Meanwhile, police officers will be knocking on the doors of ordinary folk, handing them hefty fines they might not otherwise receive if they were related to the PM or a former opposition leader.
