Rulebreakers should have book thrown at them

Word reaches us of a south coast recording studio at which the engineer was roundly abused by the artists the other day. Why? Not only had he insisted that the microphones, seven of them, should be two metres apart, but he then went around carefully sanitising each one, much to the incredulity of the band.

The musicians, all under 30, thought he was mad and had no idea that Covid-19 could be transmitted in such fashion. Or at least that’s what they claimed.

What, you might well ask, were a seven-piece band plus engineer doing in a cramped studio in the first place in these dreadful times?

This tale, which is not apocryphal, seems beyond belief to those of us who slavishly follow the lockdown rules to the letter, shut ourselves away and shun contact with everyone, even the postman, supermarket delivery driver and hyperactive van operative from the company of the long South American river.

And then there is HMS Collingwood and the unbelievable shenanigans that went on there last weekend.

You, like us, could probably not believe what you were reading, especially as the Covid horror show recorded another 1,243 deaths yesterday.

A ‘graduation’ party, allegedly comprising a number of sailors on a promotion course, as well as those taking on their phase two professional training, was held at the Fareham base and was in contravention of the Royal Navy’s social distancing rules. There was at least one person who should have been in isolation.

For all we know these men and women could have been detailed on Monday morning to oversee vaccine jabs and jeopardised the lives of anyone with whom they had contact.

There are no excuses and we hope the captain of Collingwood is indeed incandescent and throws the book at ringleaders.