Why I'm angry about the May parties at Downing Street - share your stories

[ThirdTimeIucky]

No agenda, just a whinge to demonstrate rhe millions of individual reasons people are angry about BYOB parties in Downing Street whilst the rest of us were in Lockdown. I've heard so many stories of loved ones dying alone, loneliness and heartbreak.

For me, when the party took place on the 20th, I had been struggling in a domestic abuse situation for months. In lockdown. I'd been on my own trying to deal with this situation. I felt like I was trapped. It was an incredibly painful and difficult time of my life. Three days later, feeling terribly guilty, and despite the restrictions, if went to my sisters as the situation had become so bad. But because of those restrictions, I stayed in that situation for so much longer than I should have done.

I so hope he resigns tomorrow, I was going to write I hope he does the decent thing and resigns but remembered who I was referring to and realised how ridiculous an expectation that would be.

I hope the Tory advisors are reading all these heartbreaking threads tonight

I’m so very sorry to read some of the horrors that I am.

It’s awful to say but it feels like wasted energy to even get angry anymore. People put up with it and nothing changes. When speaking to my mum the other day, she said “yeah but Boris gets things done”. I can’t think of a single thing that he’s done, I’ve never seen our country in such a poor state. I’m only relaying that story to get the point across that most people forgive him, even smart, wonderful people like my mother!

Ds & I had moved in with my 83 year old mum as Covid was just starting as I could see the situation was looking bad. My mum was on her own since my dad passed away in 2019 & was struggling. It was a good job really because ds & I have organised all the shopping online during the pandemic, I don't know how she would have managed for food & would have been on her own as my brother hasn't offered to help out at all.

FajitaBonita

Left wing Mumsnet? How often do you come on this site?

Ds in effect went to school one morning & when he came home had left as GCSE's were cancelled. He didn't go back to school until September when sixth form started, he never got a proper last day, has never sat an exam, no prom, no going to school for results.

We cancelled xmas 2020 when the announcement was made. We were supposed to be hosting my mum and fiancé’s mum and parter for the first time for Christmas. But we followed the rules. Me and mum cried on the phone when we talked about it not happening but felt we were doing the right thing. And we’d try again this xmas - only a year away. Everyone was up for it and at least I’d have a whole year to get better at cooking lol.

Mum died in October from pancreatic cancer. We found out she was ill 6 weeks before she died.

Many people lost loved ones during COVID and they couldn’t even see them and I’m thankful I got to see mum almost every day of those 6 weeks. And I’m sorry if you are one of the many who had to say goodbye to loved ones through plastic screens, zoom or even only in prayer.

But the thought that I lost those precious memories…cancelled that last Christmas on the advice of our government even though we do wanted to be naughty and say fuck it let’s do it.

And he played us for fools. Thought that he and his government were above the rules. Thought that they deserved their little get togethers in a way no one else did. Valued a pint with their colleagues more than that last hand hold of your loved one, that last face to face conversation about hopes and fears with someone you cherish, a last Christmas with my lovely mum.

Because my wonderful Grandmother lost her beloved older brother a few weeks into lockdown (cancer and Alzheimer’s), and I couldn’t see her, hug her or comfort her at all, let alone in the ways she has me over my life. No funeral, no wake.

Because my Grandparents missed out on 2 years of their Great Grandchildren’s lives.

Because I’m the sole carer for 3DC, work and study, and had a nervous fucking breakdown due to the insane amounts of stress + no support, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same and my DC are probably scarred for life.

There are some incredibly sad stories on this thread. It's so extreme when you see it written down like this.

I'm more angry that the government made some of these rules than that they broke them and at the hypocrisy involved in that. I always knew that most of the government didn't think the rules were important - there is perhaps something about being the one to decide on the rules and design the mechanics of them that prevents them having much authority - you know ultimately that they are arbitrary and different choices could have been made.

It feels like people should say "never again" to some of this - people dying alone, children being unable to play with another child for months, single people being subjected to solitary confinement which we would not subject our worst prisoners to. But we've seen in the last month how quickly some can clamour for restrictions again.

I was alone with a newborn in May 2020. I had no support from anyone (zero postnatal care), though I did eventually break and go and see my parents. I found the fact that no one would see my baby as a newborn really hard.

It was my mums 90th birthday, she should of had a bring a bottle party for everyone she knew, but instead she spent it mainly on her own with a visit from my family when we sat outside her patio doors and talked to her through the window. No hugs, no kisses from all her family, just us and a zoom call from my dsis

She passed away last year after spending so so much of her final months alone.

I was working throughout managing a ward of elderly patients terrified every day of an outbreak and many deaths which eventually did come in Jan 21 with delta which I also caught pre vaccine. I was luckier than one of my colleagues who wound up in ICU. The worst thing was the fear that I would be the one to bring it to the ward. I was super strict about regulations because of that daily fear.

In May 2020 I had not seen my terminally ill mum at all since March apart from on a screen or through a window as she was shielding due to being on chemotherapy and I was afraid I would give her Covid and kill her. In September she died anyway of her cancer and we had all missed out on seeing her for most of her final year on this earth. I so bitterly bitterly regret those wasted months.

Thank God restrictions had eased enough by then that her family could be with her in the hospice and that we could have thirty people at her funeral although that was nowhere near as many as wanted to go. Officially I was not allowed to hug my dad or my siblings at my mums funeral.
Then came the 2nd lockdown which prevented me seeing my bereaved dad at Christmas.
It honestly has felt like trauma on trauma.

I remember debating if I could buy my junior Drs a takeaway and eat it in the hospital grounds at the end of their rotation in summer 2020 by which time it was rule of 6. We were mixing with one another at work all day every day but we would have been too many households so we didn't do it. Because we felt we needed to set an example as NHS staff
And that was despite that we had definitely all been working hard and they massively deserved it. They had been redeployed, had their careers and education and plans disrupted, many had been living alone in a new city or even new country, they had abided by all the ever changing guidance and risked getting Covid every day. It was brave and some people couldn't face it and went off sick so the people who made it through did deserve some cheese and wine but it was against the rules so we didn't do it.

Reading these stories makes me furious at BJ for breaking the rules he made, but they also make me furious at the people who made the rules in the first place.

And at the people on here who judged, finger-wagged, shouted at people having a hard time, and snitched on neighbors.

I was working 16 hour days on Covid response, alone in my home. I had Covid just before lockdown, was in hospital and came out, all without seeing any of my family. I didn't see anyone in person until July, which I found incredibly difficult to bear. I couldn't help my parents with practical stuff as they lived too far away, or see my dad when he was in hospital with a heart attack. I continued working at the same rate until I had my first holiday in summer 2021. I've lost nearly two years of my life and may well get timed out on having children because of it.

I will never, ever, obey any restrictions on seeing other people again.

Politicians will meet their fate at the ballot box or sooner at the hands of the parliamentary party. My fury is mainly with civil service colleagues in No10 who should have showed some bloody integrity and political awareness, irrespective of how junior or senior they are. They could have stopped this, and because they didn't, the government is now paralysed and unable to get on with any other business. And if we ever had a big wave of a new variant, we've now lost some of the policy options for dealing with it because public trust and goodwill have evaporated.

@Ivalueloyaltyaboveallelse

We lost a child in the family (not to covid) it was very sudden and horrendous. We couldn’t visit the child in hospital, hold his hand, kiss his face and say our last goodbye’s. I couldn’t comfort his parents and other family members. My DC were unable to attend the funeral and say their goodbyes. Many had to stand outside and watch on a horrible screen like it was a tv show. Even worse is we had attend another funeral the same way months later of my grandad.

Absolutely beyond horrific..your anecdote is absolutely heart wrenching..you must be now verging on vomiting , knowing that this appalling government were so bloody callout.

I was shielding inside my house, alone, as I have now been mostly since March 2020
Waiting for a "boris box" as I hadn't been able to get a food delivery and it was so desperate that the council and a local pub sent me a food parcel
I was reading about DNAR, how I shouldn't go outside and how it was only people with underlying conditions that were dying

In fact two pics from May 2020
Sitting on the floor reading the letter and thinking WTF
And the box of food I was so grateful and humbled by

I was working on an ICU, we had covid patients. I avoided seeing my family because I was so scared I would pass the virus to them. I spent weeks and weeks going into work and not seeing anyone outside work. It was lonely and scary and meanwhile they were having a byob party and a right old time of it. That was nothing in comparison with what others have suffered and I want to see this shower of bastards be held accountable.

Watching my 5yo organise her birthday party for grandparents and close family on Zoom because she knew it was important to follow the rules and keep everyone safe.

And then mourning the loss of my grandmother, who died alone despite begging me to 'pop over for a cuppa' the last time we spoke over the phone. She was cremated within a week of the Downing St party was taking place, without any friends or family present.

I cant even begin to tell you how angry I am about it.

I am not angry they had a party, or any of their numerous parties.

I am angry about the legislation they bought in and how hypocritical it all is.

Do they not understand that people birthed and died alone. That people were locked in their homes. That peoples livelihoods, incomes & businesses were destroyed. That people were criminalised and prosecuted. All while they giggled and drank.

Its a fucking disgrace!

At that particular time, my mum’s cancer test was lost (terminal when found months later), I missed my MIL’s funeral, dh and I had been living apart so that he was part of his dad’s household instead of our household and could look after him (80 and had just lost mil, although now he is also dead). I was home educating my autistic child along with various other difficulties.

I don’t think Boris’s party had any direct impact on my personal problems and additionally, I can’t understand why people are suddenly saying Boris is arrogant, dishonest etc when these facts have been publicly known for years. How is it any surprise and why did anyone expect him to be any different to how he’d always been? I didn’t vote for him so no agenda from me either. But I don’t think he should resign based on characteristics that were absolutely 100% clear when he was elected.

Two reasons - one trivial one tragic.

DH and I went swimming in the river near our home - we walked there, so it was perfectly within the 'exercise from home rules' but someone called the police anyway, and they came and asked us not to. They walked past large groups of people partying who were in fact gathered illegally to tell us that our perfectly legal activity would 'make other people who don't live here want to come here to do the same so please don't'. It gave me massive anxiety about going anywhere after that.

The second one - my Mum's oldest friend was dying of cancer. Then another of her friends committed suicide. My sister and I decided their mental health was a priority so we went to visit our parents (we walked there so no travel involved). We couldn't hug them. We sat outside with rugs over our legs and had a bottle of wine to cheer my Mum up. The neighbours called the police who came out to my parents rural home, diverting them from real police work. By the time they arrived we had already gone home - my Mum rang me in floods of tears, devastated and has been terrified ever since of it happening again despite there now being no restrictions now.

I hate this government. I think they honestly didn't believe the rules applied to them.

FIL died at the beginning of lockdown. By May, MIL was really struggling.

We went round and ripped off shopping for her, spoke to her through the window etc, got her a tablet so she could do video calls. SIL would also visit when she could and take the grandkids round to speak to her from the garden.

But you could tell she was terrified and felt so alone, especially as she hadn’t been able to have a proper funeral to say goodbye (she is religious).

There was no way she would have even countenanced breaking any rules to make it easier on herself or hug her grandkids.

If a grieving lady in her seventies can stick to the rules for the sake of doing the right thing by other people, so can elected politicians and their unelected flunkies.

My cousin who was in his 80s was good to my mum and came to her funeral. I couldn't go to his. His immediate family had to grieve alone. I hate Johnson.

Tories /folks in power/upper classes, the rich, whatever you want to call them, simply do not and did not give a shit about people suffering during covid. They do not give a shiny fuck.

@Reallycantbesarsed the laughing and smirking really got to me. I’m completely full of regret and shame for following the rules and not being able to say goodbye’s. As NHS staff I felt I had a duty to set an example, unlike this government who have exploited this pandemic from the start for their own gain. I’m beyond disgusted.

This is also May 2020.

Different people, different personal circumstances and sometimes different choices.