Shortly before Boris Johnson hosted the first of 16 lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street and across Whitehall, John Wilson – the leader of the Conservative group on Barnsley Council – was burying his father-in-law.
Just five people attended the service that day in April 2020. They did not include the deceased’s wife who the family considered too vulnerable to the then novel coronavirus. “It’s upsetting,” says Wilson today. “He was someone who was should have had a lot of loved ones there at the end.”
