My wife died on 31 January 2021 from metastatic breast cancer a few weeks after Shaun Bailey and his friends had their party at Conservative HQ. As can be seen from the video, there was no social distancing, indeed open contempt for it. The experience of my family and myself was totally different. After a very difficult Christmas, spent largely in the garden, my wife fell out of bed on 5 January and was admitted to hospital. We were not allowed to see her again because of Covid rules until a fortnight later, when we were allowed one hour. She could barely speak. No further visits were allowed until we were told she was dying – and then we were given unlimited access. The problem was she could not talk, smile or communicate in any way.
Her funeral took place in early March, the delay caused by the high demand on crematoria. There were fewer than 10 people present and we could not even offer them a cup of tea, let alone have a party.
I do hope this country does not just blame Boris Johnson and his inability to tell the truth – but also the hundreds of Tory MPs who have supported a corrupt regime.
Roger McGarva
West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire
• I shed tears over Sarah Hollingdale’s letter (My father died while the Tories were having lockdown parties, 25 June). With a few changes, this could have been written by any of my three children about the months leading up to their father’s death, in May 2021. Like Sarah’s father, their father was a popular person who gave much back to the community, in his field of expertise, education.
While members of the Tory party were jingling and mingling, my husband’s final family Christmas celebration (normally a child-oriented get-together over several days), was reduced to 10 minutes, with him sitting in his wheelchair in the hall while I stood in the open doorway and two of our adult children stood outside in waterproofs, socially distanced at all times, with rain pouring into their mugs of mulled wine.
Like Sarah, we cannot accept the disregard that members of the government had for their own rules. We all find it hard to reconcile that while we were having one of the worst times of our lives, we (including my late husband) were still making decisions based on the public good, but they were not. Their actions were totally amoral and thus very hard to forgive and forget.
Elizabeth Davey
Peterborough
• The first letter above was amended on 28 June 2023 to remove personal information.
