Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Yvie Burnett: The public are fuming, and rightly so

Boris Johnson has faced fierce criticism across the board this week.
Boris Johnson has faced fierce criticism across the board this week.

Exasperated, angry, frustrated, fatigued, past caring. These are some of the adjectives used by you readers, in reply to me asking how you feel.

As more and more stories come out about Downing Street parties, and as it looks like, in contrast, we are to be given even more restrictions over the next days and weeks, no wonder we are feeling frustration.

Is it one rule for the privileged few while the rest of us keep the country safe?

It certainly looks like while many of our loved ones were spending Christmas alone last year and sticking to the rules, that wasn’t the case for some of those making them.

For some people, their loved one, who spent Christmas apart from them, has now passed away, so it was the last Christmas they could have had together.

If you are in a privileged position, the worst thing you can do is betray the trust of those who have enabled you to be there.

And what makes all of this so much worse, was us seeing a leaked video of political advisors and staff laughing at how to answer awkward questions in a press conference rehearsal.

Allegra Stratton was tearful as she spoke to the press outside her home after resigning from her post. 

In other words, they knew it would cause outrage, so they had to practise how to deny the accusations or lie to cover them up.

They found this extremely amusing, and of course Allegra Stratton was the scapegoat who resigned in tears, but we can’t forget she was being coached by other members of staff in how to do this.

I believed her tears. I believed she realised how wrong this was and I think with hindsight she would have questioned this, but it’s all on camera, so she had to go.

It’s a disgrace really.

Having parties, breaking rules they set, acting above the law, but most especially, sniggering at all of us ordinary people who have to just do as we are told.

The sad thing is that most of us want to do as we are told if it means keeping our loved ones and our community safe. We have an inbuilt moral compass which makes us want to be unselfish and do the right thing, so we don’t deserve to be laughed at and treated with contempt.

So right now, just when the politicians need us to be compliant and careful, many people are so frustrated and angry that they want to rebel.

The government cannot tell people to cancel Christmas parties this year. They would be laughed at. Many people will do that anyway but not because Boris says so.

None of us wants to have a positive result this week of all weeks, so I think a lot of us will lie low until next weekend just to make sure we aren’t ill or having to isolate.

I quickly popped up to Turriff this week for the day to see my lovely aunties. I’ve been doing lateral flow tests every day just to be sure.

I just didn’t trust that Nicola wouldn’t shut down care homes or prevent people travelling to Scotland next week so I jumped on a plane while I could.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has had some big decisions to make this week. 

So if we aren’t going out much, are we watching TV? Of course we are. The TV guides are looked out and all the good shows circled.

Did you watch the final of I’m A Celebrity’? I’m afraid I didn’t make it that far. I went to bed that night with a good book.

I love that show and am a big fan of Ant and Dec, but without the Australian sunshine it was, quite literally, a totally washout.

On the bright side, it’s bound to be back in the jungle next year or the year after, and I think a dishevelled blonde-haired guy who is an ex-prime minster would be great to be voted to do all the trials.

Now what did you think of Simon Cowell’s new show, Walk The Line?

I’m writing this before I’ve watched all the episodes but after the first night, in which I didn’t like any of the singers and thought it all fell flat, I was proved wrong on night two when we actually got the gist of how the show worked.

The Walk The Line panel, from left: Craig David, Alesha Dixon, Maya Jama, Dawn French and Gary Barlow.

I’m not going to bother explaining the show to you but the singers are basically betting money on their own talent, with a prize of half a million pounds.

Tonight of course we have the Strictly final and I’m rooting for Rose and Giovanni. I hope they lift that trophy. They have been a joy to watch.

Have a good week,
Yvie x