Like most of the UK, I've been observing the coronavirus lockdown guidance for around eight weeks now – to the letter, and to no little personal cost. And every detail of the Dominic Cummings lockdown controversy is an insult to all of us.
In my case, lockdown has involved working full-time while chronically ill and parenting two children too young to understand why they couldn't see their friends or go out more than once a day.
At times I've been without medication I have to take daily for my mental health, and have been bedridden with the side effects. And with very little downtime, and unable to see friends, relatives, or my – until recently estranged; now seriously ill mother, at points I wasn't sure I could go on. However, I did, as we all did – because we trusted the government when it asked us to stay home, save lives, and relieve the burden on the NHS.
But. Every aspect of the Cummings controversy – from the flamboyant accumulation of ways he seemed to flout the very guidelines he helped establish (and possibly break at least one road law); to his bristling, unrepentant self-defence 'as a father'; to his apparentexploitation of a loophole designed to accommodate victims of abuse; to the Prime Minister's blind support of his story – is a slap in the face to everyone who sacrificed significant personal liberties to observe the guidelines.
And the situation is so bizarre that the only way I can understand it is by unpacking it, detail by detail; date by date.
Late March 2020: The Prime Minister instructs the UK to stay at home, stay away from others – particularly vulnerable people and the elderly, and to stop all non-essential travel. Anyone showing potential symptoms of coronavirus – or anyone living with those showing symptoms – must strictly self-isolate for 14 days.
In my family: I have two days of fever and body aches, then a week of total exhaustion. My husband and I remove our children from school and nursery, go into quarantine, and work from home where possible. We agree that if we both become ill, we will just have to parent our children to the best of our ability.
Dominic Cummings: Goes to work despite his wife being ill, then – believing that he himself is ill with coronavirus – drives his wife and four-year-old son 260 miles from London to his elderly father's property near Durham, in search of childcare. Once they arrive, Cummings feels seriously ill.
Early April 2020: The government advise anyone showing symptoms of coronavirus to remain at home unless they are told to go to hospital.
Dominic Cummings: Is so ill with fever that he can barely stand up. He later picks his son up from hospital after he'd developed a fever and been taken there by ambulance (but says he remains in the car).
In my family: My mother dies of coronavirus in a Berkshire care home, 100 miles from me.
Dominic Cummings: Is spotted walking with his family in local woodland. Later he would clarify that this woodland was, technically, on his father's land.
In my family: Because of the non-essential travel restrictions – and because it seems cruel to subject a toddler and five-year-old to a 200-mile round-trip for a funeral – I arrange a direct cremations for my mother, with no tributes, no speeches, and no guests, and agree to collect her remains at some point after lockdown.
Dominic Cummings: Drives to Castle Barnard, a tourist spot 45 minutes from his father's home, on his wife's birthday. He claims to have done this to 'test his eyesight' as it had been problematic, even though it is against the law to drive with defective eyesight.
In my family: I am grieving, and working full-time, and parenting full-time. The children have written cards to their grandfather and cousins who live nearby; we drop them off and wave at family members through their windows, then drive home as the children ask why they can't go and play.
Watching Dominic Cummings deliver his statement to the press, looking – at most – mildly put out, I realised how little I trust the government guidelines, especially as a person of mixed heritage, given how disproportionately BAME people are being penalised for not even bending the guidelines Cummings felt so free to break entirely.
In the next few months I must decide whether to return my children to school and nursery. I don't know what I'll do, but I do know I'm going to do my own research rather than relying on government advice. Especially as any of us might be mown down en route to school by a civil servant testing their eyesight on the road.
READ MORE: What Is Gaslighting? And What Has It Got To Do With Dominic Cummings?