Put politics aside, our Government has made a bad call on a simple matter of right and wrong

‘I am angry at the implication that the electorate, sheltering dutifully for over 60 days, was stupid’

‘The Government has surely broken many beliefs that they have the best interests of the public at heart’

Afriend of mine, a doctor at a busy city hospital, has not been able to work properly for the last nine weeks. She has not been able to work properly because she has a young son with complex special needs, including epilepsy and autism caused by a rare genetic disorder, that meant he had to be shielded weeks before lockdown.

Even if she wanted to send him to school, she couldn’t. The school for children with special educational needs felt it could not comply with government guidelines to keep pupils safe. It didn’t have any PPE. Even if it had been supplied, the school worried that it would frighten the children, all of whom thrive in environments familiar and safe to them.

My friend would have liked to go to her mother’s house, or her in-laws. But she didn’t. She didn’t, not because she was an uncaring parent or lacked common sense – quite the opposite, in fact. She didn’t, because she was told again and again by the Government that she couldn’t, a fact echoed by her colleagues at the hospital who were reporting to her frightening tales from an ever-expanding intensive care unit.

She stayed at home, because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But as so many of us have discovered over recent months, the right thing rarely is.

I had a chat with her on Friday night, before the Dominic Cummings story came out. She was broken, depressed, and unsure if their lives would go back to normal before the end of the year. Today, she is angry, and I am angry for her. I am angry at the implication that the electorate, sheltering dutifully in place for over 60 days now, was stupid to do so. I am angry that our Prime Minister and his Cabinet feel it is more important to defend this unelected Spad than it is to listen to the outrage of the people they serve. Even if Cummings has not broken any rules, the Government has surely broken many beliefs that they have the best interests of the British public at heart.

To try and turn this into a case of Left versus Right is insulting, not least to the many Brexit-voting Conservative supporters who are just as outraged as their counterparts in the Remain camp. This transcends party politics – though in being unable to see that, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet will find it a political issue for many, many months to come. This is not about Left or Right. It is a simple matter of right and wrong.