You know how when you make something illegal, it’s probably best not to go right ahead and do the illegal thing? Especially when that thing is “fundamental social contact”.

Yeah. That.

I’ll recap.

May 2021. Johnson’s government is about to announce a tightening of the rules. Everyone is, at best, dismayed.

The new rules are:

1. You may not leave your home for any reason that isn’t work, essential shopping (food, basically), to support someone else (there’s a whole thing about “support bubbles” that I’ll skip here), or to take exercise twice a day.
2. Outwith the reasons above, you may not meet indoors with anyone outside your household. You may meet with one person from another household, outside, whilst maintaining social distancing.
3. Pubs, restaurants, bars, nightclubs: all closed.

That’s it. Your family life: turned off. Your social life: turned off. Any recreational activities? Nope.

The thing here is that these rules are not guidance, they are The Law.

So. That’s the sitch.

Prince Philip - Duke of Edinburgh and Mr Queen - dies in April. What would have been a big fancy funeral, with 800 invited guests, and no doubt many thousands of flag-wavers along the route and outside Buckingham Palace, is scaled back to a modest gathering (albeit in Westminster Abbey) of 30, diligently complying with the lockdown rules. She sits alone - per the above image - at her husband’s funeral.

The very day before this most somber of national events, in a time where it’s literally illegal to have a party to which anyone outside your household is invited, Johnson’s government has a number of boozy pissups at #10, in one case sending a peon to the Tesco over the road with a suitcase, to buy more wine. And this wasn’t a one-off - it turns out that the Johnson administration has a bit of a habit of organising drunken parties whilst the rest of the country is getting solo pissed on their sofa.

The law is one thing. The optics - well, that’s another matter. As you’re probably aware, even republicans in the UK will concede that if you’re going to have a Queen, you can’t really do better than Liz 2. She is widely and uncontroversially well-loved, a sentiment that crosses political, ethnic, and class boundaries.

So there’s that. What really put a cap on it, though, was the revelation that in one case, they were having one of these little parties just 20 minutes or so before the televised press conference announcing the new restrictions. Again, the law is one thing, the optics another.

The good burghers of the UK are fucking furious, to use a technical term. There’s a tiny rump of presumably emotionally-dead people who are saying things like “He’s apologised, so let’s move on”, but most people are off-the-chain miffed about this.

I could post a bunch of links, but basically visit the website of the UK newspaper of your choice and have a read, because this is front and centre on every single one.

I disagree that it's dishonest.

Repeatedly trapping a liar in their own lies is kinda the opposite.

(nearest thing you've got to the Queen, right?)