A new set of rules – but the same confusion about lockdown easing

Another day in captivity, with a new set of rules from mission control, aimed at “easing” lockdown. From Monday (and why not over the weekend?) it’s OK (in England) to invite up to five people to visit, as long as you stay outside and maintain social distancing.

TV presenter Dr Xand van Tulleken was on the radio on Friday morning unpicking the new etiquette – managing to turn hosting a barbecue into something so complicated Boris Johnson couldn’t have done the job any better. Apparently, it’s all about managing risk, if you feel anxious, pack your own plates. Stand two metres apart at all times. If you need help, that’s the size of a picnic blanket… assuming you have a special blanket for picnics and not just cheap chairs from the petrol station, like most people. Outside means outside, except when you need to urinate.

If you have to walk through the house, make sure you are carrying kitchen paper, wipe all door handles and surfaces you might touch en route. And if you use the toilet, wash your hands and – really important this – DON’T FORGET TO CLOSE THE LID AFTER FLUSHING! Maybe we should be told to put our hands up first, to get permission so that access can be cleared in advance.

For a moment I thought I had intruded on the induction class for toddlers arriving at nursery school, because it’s clear from the cascade of directives issued over the last 48 hours that Johnson and co will do anything to divert attention from the C-word – Cummings.

From the start of the pandemic, the population have been addressed as if we are small children, and the infantilisation continues. Test and trace was unveiled this week with a blizzard of instructions – in spite of an app that’s not working and plans to roll out the scheme in local areas not ready until the end of June at the earliest. But it’s been announced, so job done for Matt Hancock. Now, it’s time to announce barbecues are OK, but only if we adhere to more guidelines.

From Monday you can use a friend or family member’s toilet on your visit, but don’t share food plates and “take care” when touching food with your hands. Maybe wrap up those barbecued chicken legs in a paper towel before eating. Maybe eat the paper towel, just to be sure. As every nation in the UK is adopting different rules, lucky Englanders have all weekend to dig a trench and put up a toilet tent so the permitted five visitors could have their own facilities. By the way, tents are allowed, but you can’t stay in them overnight.

The latest guidelines for relaxing lockdown seem to be devised by a bunch of Tories who assume most people have gardens large enough to accommodate two groups with two metres between them at all times. (Maybe use cattle pens?) Middle class homeowners who assume the population have corridors large enough to allow people to pass through clutching their roll of paper towel and hand sanitiser en route to the loo or the outside space.

Never forget, this is the political party whose MP’s claimed expenses for tennis court maintenance, duck houses and moats (and their upkeep). They are de rigueur if you’ve a sizeable country pile. According to the spokesman on Radio 4’s Today programme, those without gardens can welcome visitors to their “patios and terraces”. During all my searches for a new home in the city I’ve yet to see a London flat costing under £2m with a terrace large enough to accommodate two groups standing two metres apart. Most city balconies hold a clothes drier, a tiny barbecue, a dog basket and a chair. No space for a picnic blanket.

It will be the (crowded) local park for most family get-togethers, the same space that is full of the under-30s who stopped giving a fig about safe distances weeks ago.

Johnson and co have allowed tennis (doubles partners must be from one home), golf and football, but we can’t hug grandkids and they must remain two metres from each other at all times during visits. Maybe not a problem for Tories like Jacob Rees Mogg with a live-in nanny. Under the new guidelines, children cannot share paddling pools, climbing frames or slides – good luck enforcing that! No eating indoors during visits, so if granny gets cold and wants a cup of tea in the kitchen, she’ll have to go without. Maybe wrap her up in that picnic blanket and some paper towel.

Want to see more than one group of family and friends? Forget it – you can’t skirt the rules by inviting one lot for lunch and another for afternoon tea. God knows how anyone enforces that dumb directive, perhaps the track and trace app was planned with social policing in mind, but luckily it’s not on stream.

As for anyone over 70, we must “take extreme care” – maybe pensioners should arrive wrapped in paper towel or cling film, and bring their own food? Or just sit in their car outside and wave? Can I bake a cake and offer it to my friends? Or does it have to be wiped first? Or do I just wipe the knife I cut it with? So confusing.

When elderly family members arrive, are you allowed to unload the car (and their picnic blanket)? Much easier if you have a servant (or live-in nanny) to do that. Of course these rules are ridiculous – friends in Australia, where similar guidelines are in place, say they were flouted from the outset.

With warmer weather, we’re visiting the beaches and beauty spots in our thousands, people were ignoring social distancing long before Cummings was pilloried. University College London has been studying the behaviour and attitudes of 90,000 adults since lockdown – the number who say they are adopting “complete” compliance of the lockdown rules has dropped by just over 50 per cent in the last two weeks, with the fastest group of flouters the under-30s, city dwellers and those with mental health issues.

Confidence in the government has dropped to its lowest level since the survey started, indicating a growth in cynicism about what these rules will achieve. Another study, by King’s College London and Ipsos MORI, has found a similar pattern – one in seven respondents say that family and friends have visited, a threefold increase over the past six weeks.

Enjoy your barbecue, but don’t forget the paper towel – sod saving trees.