One of the most bizarre attitudes of the pandemic is over face masks at Westminster

Boris Johnson will hope the festive season draws a line under the No 10 Christmas party scandals and other assorted rule-breaking by the government.

But the story keeps going and has done the first real damage to the Conservative Party in the polls since the 2019 election. It has cut through not because the gatherings were necessarily superspreader events, but because they gave the impression that the government thinks rules and cautions don’t apply to them.

The same attitude to Covid restrictions is found elsewhere in Westminster too. One of the most bizarre to me has been the application of mask rules in the Commons. Or more accurately, the lack of them.

The absence of mask-wearing in the Commons chamber illustrates clearly how some MPs have chosen to conduct themselves. But the parliamentary estate is not just the Commons chamber – it consists of offices for 650 MPs, support staff, journalists, and facilities for them, like canteens and bars.

While the rest of the country were mandated to wear masks in indoor public spaces earlier this year, this was notably not the case in many areas of parliament, such as the canteens. There seemed to be no obvious reason for this.

Yet, oddly, when masks restrictions were relaxed for the public earlier in the year, the Commons authorities upped their game and imposed a mask requirement. But they did not do it for everyone. Support staff, police officers, and other comers and goers on the estate have been told to wear face coverings – but not MPs.

The reasoning given by parliamentary authorities was that MPs are not employees of parliament, so cannot be compelled to wear face coverings. This reasoning does not hold much water.

As a journalist, I am reasonably required to wear a mask on the estate for the safety of others – but I am no more an employee of parliament than an MP is. And, across the rest of the country, it was never the case that you had to be an employee of a restaurant or the London Underground to wear a mask while on those premises.

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Of course, the fundamental stupidity of the exemption for the elected is that MPs are no less vulnerable to the virus or capable of spreading it than anyone else. It seems difficult to escape the conclusion that some MPs think they are simply too important to be told what to do. This also appeared to be the case with other regulations, like remote working – which the Commons, under Jacob Rees-Mogg’s leadership, did away with as soon as possible.

Whatever the risks, parliament should of course meet in person when safe, because it is important. But it seems to me a reflection of the same attitude that led to wine and cheese evenings in Downing Street, and questions over why so many staff were in the office when many of their functions can be done from home. Their work is very important, you must understand.

Yours,

Jon Stone

Policy correspondent