This is late night thinking so I may have to delete when I have slept, but...

One of the massive errors the government made with the management of the pandemic was the tone they took.

I'll explain:

1/

At the outset, we were told, think of others, volunteer to help the NHS, organise food for the vulnerable, stay well and check on your friends. Mask up, to protect others, more than yourself.

And coz England is mostly inhabited by decent good people (no really) we all did.

2/

We wore masks in case we were the one. We disinfected letterboxes & opened train doors with our elbows. We quarantined post, sang Happy Birthday when we washed our hands and stepped into the road to let neighbours pass on the pavement at a 2m distance.

We cared & we tried.

3/

You have to wear a mask, we told eachother, because it's not about you, it's about the old ladies and the kids with cancer, we have to wear it to protect them.

And we all nodded and agreed and begrudgingly hoiked up our scarves and covered our faces, for others sakes.

4/

They invoked the blitz spirit and they did so on purpose.

The blitz spirit (if not the blitz itself) has a warm fuzzy effect on English morale & equally serves as a call to action. We collectively took a deep breath & multiplied our efforts to be our best selves.

5/

It was (mostly) working, panic buying aside, and everyone was trying to do their best, for others.

Until Barnard Castle.

Cummings wasn't the first official to break the rules, but he was the first to be granted a free pass to, as he saw fit.

6/

We were told it was "common sense", that "any parent would do the same". This was a lie. This made a mockery of everything we had lost as a society and as individuals, when we raised the bars, with the invocation of the sentiment that should and could have saved us all.

7/

And now the 3rd line down on the image above means nothing, 5% risk of transmission to you if I wear a mask eh? Why should I care? The leaders have set the precedents for me. This is a dog eat dog society & it's not about what's right it's about what you can get away with.

8/

So now we have to change our strategy and we have to talk about line 2. A 30% risk to me instead of 90%, if I wear a mask. Selfishness will motivate some. But nothing motivates like the blitz spirit could have, and the leaders of our people pisses on it in front of us.

9/

We have the most Tory of possible Tory situations now- it's every man for himself.

If you don't like wearing a mask (what's to like, it's horrible), just don't. There are even rallies in the capital legitimising your apathy as a political persuasion.

10/

In the middle of a public health crisis none of us have ever seen the like of before and hopefully never will again, when a collective big picture overview mess all that ever could have saved us, we were leld the entire wrong way.

11/11