No sense

Make straight paths (Mark 1:3)
Something puzzles me. For a nation that practically invented queueing, it is odd to see rules being flouted everywhere you look. From back-garden parties, to stay-over relatives, from beach invasions to street raves, it seems we've given up on lockdown. What does this mean?
Well, for one the Brits do not take kindly to privilege. Oh, they love royalty and are surprisingly comfortable with some sort of elite (two of the last three PMs went to Eton), but they hate one rule for some and another for everybody else. As soon as Boris failed to sack Cummings the writing was on the wall for lockdown compliance. Mates rates are okay, but mates rules are not.
More than that, rules only work if they make sense. Old people (high risk) are allowed to visit overnight with their working offspring (high contagion), while students (low risk) are not allowed to meet up with their friends (equally low risk). Groups of 30 or more can meet in a religious building, but you can't have more that six people together in your back garden. You can travel as far as you like but when you get there you can't park, or go to the toilet and no one helps you to stay safe when everyone else has the same idea. We're supposedly at an exciting new dawn of post-lockdown freedom but well over 100 people a day are dying from the disease. You see, nothing adds up.
Now, I'm a teacher, and I can assure you when rules are unfair or when rules are absurd no one keeps them. These rules are both, at one and the same time. Unfair and absurd. No wonder no one keeps them. So I have a suggestion: let's call on our leaders to make straight paths to health and safety, because, frankly, we all want to walk on them. Give us good rules and clear guidance and, if you stick to them, then we'll stick to them too. Like Brits queueing for McDonalds, we will patiently act together to beat this virus, because that's what we do well.

Wild flowers near the beach

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