Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been found by police to have broken Covid laws they helped to set. The news has prompted a further wave of anger from people who made sacrifices to help slow the spread of the virus.
Here, three people speak about the sacrifices they made during lockdown and their views on Johnson and Sunak’s actions.
‘I’ve never known a worse bunch of cheats and liars’
Hugh Sharp, 82, retired construction worker based in Cramlington, Northumberland
When Hugh Sharp walked through the arched red doors of Mayfield cemetery for the funeral of his wife, Margot, in January 2021, the chapel was not how he remembered it.
Sharp had visited before, when a friend died a few years previously. He recalled about 100 people turning out. Now it looked sparse and empty. Because of Covid restrictions, only 20 people warmed the pews.
“It was terrible,” said Sharp, a retired construction worker and former miner. It felt even worse given how Margot had effortlessly acquired friends wherever she went. “She was a very bubbly person, she loved meeting new people,” he said. “When we went on holiday to Turkey years ago, she met people there she kept in contact with for decades.”
When Margot was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2018 – first located in her spine, then spreading to her breast – she and Hugh had been married for almost 60 years. She was three months older. “She used to say I was her toy boy,” Sharp said.
Despite endless hospital trips Margot was in good spirits at first, Sharp said. But when Covid hit, he felt she missed out on treatments, and amid social constrictions such as not seeing her three sons, she declined quickly. She died aged 81.
When the news broke about Johnson and Sunak, Sharp felt sickened. “I first voted in 1959, and I’ve never known a worse bunch of cheats and liars,” he said.
Despite the thin crowd in the chapel on the day of the funeral, outside was a different story. Dozens of friends and neighbours braved freezing weather to pay their respects. “We gave her a good send-off in the end,” he said.
‘I’m heartbroken for our nation’
Craig Crosthwaite, 59, food bank coordinator in Ardrossan, Scotland
Craig Crosthwaite was not just providing food to his local community during the pandemic. He was also driving every fortnight to deliver groceries to his parents, both 80, 60 miles away.
“You’d just dump it on the doorstep and step back,” he said. Crosthwaite’s mother has mobility issues. She would typically invite him into the house for a cup of tea, but Crosthwaite would decline each time, reminding her of her vulnerability to Covid.
“It was emotionally draining, having to stand at the gate and just see them framed by the doorway, struggling to pick the food up,” he said. The lack of contact has taken a toll. “You feel it qualitatively – no touching, no hugging, no goodbye kisses,” he said. “It’s painful.”
For his mother’s 80th, in September 2021, Crosthwaite said he stayed away to minimise potential transmission of the virus. They spoke on the phone. His gift, a new iPad so they could FaceTime more easily, arrived by post. So when Crosthwaite heard the news that Johnson had broken the law on his birthday, he was furious at the prime minister’s “callousness”.
“As a Christian, I prayed for that man’s recovery when he was on a ventilator,” he said. “He made the laws, but now he’s smirking and laughing at us all. I’m heartbroken for our nation that we’re headed by somebody with this mindset.”
‘In Westminster Covid was treated as something exciting’
Juliet, 55, teacher in East Sussex
Like many people, Juliet’s job was transformed when Covid hit. She works as a teacher for a peripatetic service for vulnerable children across East Sussex. But during the pandemic, she often found herself pivoting from teaching the curriculum to checking that children’s basic needs were being met.
“Lots of kids were at home without pencil and paper,” she said. “One of my jobs ended up being signing families up to food banks.”
The impact of Covid restrictions on children was huge, she said. Sacrifices were made to their education and social development to slow the circulation of the virus. One child sticks out in Juliet’s mind: a boy whose family had recently arrived in the UK.
“When I arrived at the doorstep he was incredibly emotional” at seeing a familiar face, Juliet said. His mother had lost work as a cleaner. Juliet learned they had hardly left the house in two months. “He was very introverted,” she said. “Children’s behaviour has really changed.”
For Juliet, witnessing first-hand such sacrifices to drive down the virus, while in Westminster Covid was treated as “something exciting”, has meant “people are really angry. Because people’s lives were really, really hard.”
What irks her most are Conservative claims that nurses and teachers attended similar parties. “This government wants to bring us all down to a fairly shoddy level,” she said. “The fact that the Conservative party don’t seem to feel like they’ve got the guts to do anything is really disappointing.”
This article was amended on 14 April 2022 to remove some personal information.
