ladybirder - // I am one of the public and I am sick to death of this trivial cobras gate. //
As I have pointed out, I have to entirely disagree with you.
You could argue that the issue itself can be seen as trivial, what does a few drinks matter?
But to me, it's not about which rule is broken, it's the fact that any rule at all is broken, that's the important part.
How can we respect a government that makes laws and rules which it enforces on the population by law, when it doesn't obey those same rules, and makes a mockery out of people who do?
And how can we respect an Opposition who is there to hold the government to account about breaking the rules, when they have been breaking the rules as well?
If you are going to have rules, then you have to enforce them, and the enforcers have to be seen to do that more than anyone else - that means Covid Rules created by the government have to be obeyed by the government, and that means no exceptions.
It doesn't matter how 'trivial' anyone wants to think the Rule is, it's about keeping it or breaking it that matters.
Because if you let this rule-breaking go because you are tired of it, and think it's trivial, then the message that you send to the government, and the rest of the population, is that rules don't matter, and you don't have to obey them if you don't feel like it, or you don't personally think that they are serious enough to deserve upholding.
What precedent does that create?
If we allow MP's to watch pornography in the Commons, what happens when that sense of entitlement starts to stretch a little, and includes grabbing a Commons bar waitress, or kissing a secretary because it's your birthday and you've had a few at lunchtime?
As the saying goes, the longest journey begins with the first step, and that's also true if you are stepping onto a road where rules don't actually matter because you, or anyone else, thinks so.
And that road eventually leads to no rules at all, for anyone, anywhere, ever.
Anarchy and lawlessness don't happen over night. They happen because one day, someone decided that a little rule didn't matter, so breaking it didn;t matter.
And the next day, a slightly more serious rule got broken, and by then, the atmosphere around rule breaking was getting a bit looser.
And a year later, people were able to justify breaking their neighbour's door down and strangling them because their dog barked at night.
And ten years later, rules really didn't matter, there were none left, and society had collapsed completely.
It sounds alarmist, but only if we allow the first step to lead to the last step.
And the way to avoid that is to enforce the little 'trivial' rules today, so we can save the huge vital society-threatening rules tomorrow.