How to flout the lockdown rules in style — elite style! (Satire)

So everybody is up in arms just because some of our fearless leaders occasionally go for a test drive while the rest of us are sheltering in place, waiting to hear when a miracle vaccine will be made available to save us all from The Big, Bad Virus. While the journalists are pouting that this is not really the cricket spirit and just not right, the loophole specialists (lawyers, tax advisers….) are delighted to be able to add “testing your eyesight” to the list of essential errands that are unaffected by lockdown restrictions.

Well, neither of these groups is getting it, so let me explain. You obviously cannot simply assume that the same rules apply to the elite and the plebs. It’s far more important for leading politicians to regularly check their eyesight and reflexes than it is for us ordinary mortals. Think about it: if you and I jump in our cars and run over a few lockdown-flouting climate activists because we can’t see straight after the umpteenth zoom meeting (or during the umpteenth zoom meeting — you simply can’t get away from them these days no matter where you are), it’s no big deal. In fact, I am sure the police would secretly welcome the help. Truth told, I wouldn’t be too surprised if your name came up for knighthood eventually, once a little grass has grown over the *cough*unfortunate matter. But it’s very different if a senior politician does it. It leaves a bad aftertaste. There will always be some lingering suspicion that he has done it on purpose. Old, emotionally charged debates flare up again: Is it okay to label terrorists “terrorists” just because they terrorize us by blocking our roads — especially at a time when nobody is using them? And is it really necessary to deal with them in the manner that some of the more authoritarian governments around the globe would? (Not that you would ever see a senior politician in another country run over protesters with his luxury limousine — he has lackeys to do the rough work, and lackeys to keep the limousine clean and sparkling, and the two groups are kept entirely separate from each other). So you see, you can’t just divide all trips into “essential” versus “non-essential”, the way you would with businesses. If you have diarrhea, then any trip to any store that still has toilet paper is essential, period.

But there’s a bigger issue here: anyone who keeps on asking what is and isn’t allowed under the lockdown rules is just missing the overall point, which is this: anything is allowed so long as you don’t hold our humble servants responsible for whatever happens to you in the process. I’m pretty sure that when the government first ordered you to stay home, they didn’t actually expect you to stay home. I suspect they are secretly pulling their hair out over the economic wreckage that has ensued as a result of this totally unexpected civil obedience. They just regurgitated and translated their lawyers’ CYA brief for you, to make it clear to you that if you still wanted to go to the pub and got into a pub brawl, it wasn’t their fault. Advising you to stay at home is really no different to your boss telling you that he’d rather you didn’t work through the night on the latest rush project. Of course he wants to see the project completed on time. He just doesn’t want to foot your hospital bills. At the end of the day, it is your call what trips are and aren’t essential. You just need to come up with a plausible explanation that wouldn’t leave your lawyers squirming for more than three minutes.

And the dangers of the virus have been overhyped. Your risk is very low unless you fall into one of the groups of vulnerable people. Just to briefly recap, you are “vulnerable” if you are aged over 70 or under 5, are asthmatic, diabetic, immuno-compromised, overweight or pregnant, or care for somebody who is sick, or are connected on social medial with anyone who is over 70 or under 5, is asthmatic, diabetic, immuno-compromised, overweight or pregnant, or if you don’t own a face mask or haven’t had your corona-jab yet. Admittedly, this includes most of Britain, but a be-all-end-all vaccine will be available real soon, and this will scratch one important vulnerability factor from the list. On that cheery note, I will wrap up this article. It’s a bit shorter than my usual rants, but I urgently need to do some sort-of-essential shopping. Basically, I need to check whether my eyesight is still good enough to distinguish a Prada dress from a Burberry coat. It could prove Essential for my upcoming virtual speaking engagements.