A tedious day trip to a market town that sparks a national crisis? We’ve all done it
As reviews for Barnard Castle go, “I drove 260 miles, broke a pandemic-enforced nationwide lockdown that I personally helped introduce, risked the health of my extended family, rocked the stability of my own career, and torpedoed the reputation of both myself and the actual prime minister of the United Kingdom just to go there and see the Silver Swan automaton” takes some beating. I have never wanted to see a small Teesdale market town so much in my squalid little life. I cannot imagine the precious selection of keychains the gift shops there must have. I would risk it all for Barnard Castle.
If you’ve somehow missed all this (imagine I am gesturing weakly at Dominic Cummings’ house, where a crowd of agitated neighbours, un-socially distanced TV journalists and – obviously, always – some sort of Led By Donkeys stunt van, are all assembled in waiting), then the headline news right now is: a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Daily Mirror found that Dominic Cummings, that Gollum-but-if-he-dressed-from-the-assorted-bags-in-the-backroom-of-a-charity-shop one from the government, broke lockdown in the hardest way possible by driving from London to Durham when his wife had coronavirus. Then – after a perfunctory WhatsApp-coordinated round of Tory ministers tweeting their “it wasn’t that bad, really” defences of the senior adviser – a further claim: once in Durham, as coronavirus infections crested nationwide, Cummings zigged out on a nice little day trip to the Castle, then back to London, then allegedly back again to Durham, where an eyewitness says they saw him among some woodlands calling the bluebells there “lovely”. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him?
For the record, Cummings denies the bluebells story. For some reason, though, it’s this detail that really sells this story to me: I can taste these day trips, I can feel them in my bones. There is something uniquely, unquestionably British about the mediocre 30-minute drive to an underwhelming landmark. Your muscles ache from the cramped car journey. Your mouth tastes milky and chalky from the cheese sandwich you ate from a lunchbox left to warm on the backseat. The sun is in the sky, but it’s threatening to rain in a way where you have to wear a jacket even though it’s slightly too hot for a jacket. For some reason, the whole endeavour is psychically exhausting. And you make useless, observational small talk to the people around you. This is what you risked the United Kingdom’s public health strategy for? An underwhelming, tedious British day trip?
But the bigger story here is that people are furious at a Conservative government in a way that years of austerity and cronyism somehow wasn’t enough to inspire: the tinderbox situation of people being stuck inside on a lockdown, still (still!), while at the height of the pandemic a senior government adviser flouted the regulations we all followed to, according to the prime minister on Sunday, resolve his childcare issues. Other people have childcare issues, but follow the rules. Other people desperately want to see their parents, but follow the rules. It’s arguable that the Cummings incident is the first to truly politicise this pandemic (I know: it’s always been political if you’re already feeling political, but a lot of people have been more willing than usual to give Boris Johnson a bit of leeway because, “Oh come on, he’s surely doing his best”), because the picture painted is the clearest example yet of One Rule For Us, One For Them. Is Dominic Cummings allowed to leave his house and look at bluebells because, well, he’s Dominic Cummings, and Dominic Cummings follows his instinct? You, however, in your position as “not Dominic Cummings”, don’t get to do that. You just get to watch your family’s funerals from a distance.
This has led, predictably, to Cummings’ defenders being willing to jump on the sword for the infamous wildflower appreciator because he represents their politics, and their politics are sacrosanct, and so the law and logic go out of the window in place of defending the glorious name of the Conservative party. Mike Graham used his morning Talk Radio slot to ceremonially rip up dissenting newspapers. A Times editorial suggests Cummings had been cornered by politically motivated critics. Matt Hancock tweeted it was “entirely right for Dom Cummings to find childcare for his toddler”, with Michael Gove adding “caring for your wife and child is not a crime”, as though anyone else pandemic-caring for their wife and child without driving close to 300 miles to do it somehow didn’t want it enough. Boris Johnson used an entire coronavirus briefing to talk about his adviser’s paternal instincts. Rightwing commentators have jumped on tame footage of Cummings’ neighbours booing him in the street, attacking people enacting literally the most basic level of protest, as being mortally, illegally insulting and rude.
And we are still in lockdown, so what can we do? There are talks of a digital protest, and an 8pm #booforboris on Tuesday night. But there feels a dreadful inevitability to this: despite calls from MPs within his own party, despite public outcry and huge letter-writing campaigns, despite a negative (if you can imagine it!) Daily Mail front page, even if everyone in the country booed out of their window in a baleful howl, it still feels like Cummings will be, more or less, fine. Because his only friend is the most powerful man in the country with a huge parliamentary majority and no election on the horizon.
• Joel Golby is the author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant
