Nothing to see here.

It has been a hard lockdown for the UK. People have not been able to be with their family members and friends and the isolation is a continuous drain on the mental stability of many people. The same is happening all over the world. In some parts of the world the pain is worse. If you are lucky enough to have a job that you can do from home, the lockdown will be less intrusive on your finances and mental stability than a person who may have to continue to use public transportation every day in order to put food on the table. Many people have had family members die due to the effects of the virus. The rules of lockdown prevented the surviving family to be with them at the end of their lives or even attend their funerals..

So it is understandable when people get upset at images of people flouting the lockdown rules because it is a sunny day. It is even more understandable when those who flout the rules are the very people who helped write them. In England and Scotland high ranking public medical officials flouted the rules to check on their second homes or visit their lover. The response from the public, and the media, was immediate and severe. The right-wing specifically took aim at these people for breaking the rules setting the supposed standard for criticism.

But not for long.

The Prime Minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, took his family on a 260-mile road trip from London to his parent’s property in County Durham, England. During this trip, Cummings or, his wife, or both, had symptoms of the Coronavirus. Mr Cummings stated that they wanted to take their child to a place where he knew the child could get care if they were incapacitated with the virus. When the story broke on Saturday the media went into overdrive rightly asking why should the public follow lockdown rules if the Prime Minister's chief adviser can travel, while sick, across the England. As seen with the advisers above, British political custom demands that advisers resign quickly when they are caught doing something that compromises their position.

Special advisers are unique individuals in the British political system because the sit in between the impartial civil service and the partisan political party. Advising both government leaders and the civil servants in each department, the Prime Minister’s special adviser is the most powerful position a person can attain without election. Their job is to “stay out of the shot” while dictating/communicating the Government’s message of the day. It cannot be overstated how influential these people are in the British political system.

As I said earlier, Scotland and England both lost high level medical professionals because they broke the lockdown rules but, last night the Prime Minister put his full backing behind his chief adviser in an attempt to end the attention on this story.

It did not work.

As I write this post, parliamentarian's inboxes are filling with angry letters from the public about the conduct of Dominic Cummings. These letters are not just coming in from the left, but the right as well. These people are demanding that Cummings be forced out and, some are turning their anger towards the Prime Minister but there’s not much any of us can do about this.

Earlier, I used the phrase, “British Political Custom” because most of this system is held together by customary systems of “honour”. In the past, if a person broke their word or bond, their reputation would be in tatters, preventing them from attaining high positions within the political sphere. A person’s reputation was/is very important. It is so important that every Member of the Parliament is awarded ancient protections which allows anything they say in the chamber to be considered "the truth" (as far as they know). Further, it is against the rules of the House to put any Member’s honour into question by accusing them of lying. What is lacking in this system are strong sanctions against either Members, or their advisors, should they break with custom because, the employment of advisers are the sole responsibility of the Prime Minister which means, it is up to him if they should face punishment for their actions.

The British political system is built on a custom that relies on shaming people into submission when they do wrong. When shameless people are placed in positions of authority the system disintegrates and, short of an election, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Also, it has just been announced that Cummings will be giving a statement to the press today. We'll see what happens.