A Farewell to Calm by John Crace

Author:John Crace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Shapps feels the pain in Spain on holiday from hell

25 JULY 2020

Imagine the scene: Grant Shapps and his family had flown into Spain on Saturday lunchtime, picked up the hire car and had just settled into the self-catering villa when he chose to break the bad news. As of midnight UK time, anyone returning from Spain would have to quar­antine themselves for 14 days.

‘Now you tell us,’ his wife and three children had cho­rused angrily. ‘We thought you were meant to be the “air corridor” transport secretary. Did you actually know this was going to happen?’

‘Well, I did get a text this morning from Matt Hancock, saying he was much enjoying his hols canoeing in England and how sorry he was to screw up our time in Spain. Though he didn’t give me any exact details. But in any case, if we had cancelled our hols, then it would have looked like we’d been acting on inside information.’

‘So let’s get this straight. You let us all come out here knowing that we would have to be cooped up at home for a fortnight on our return. Didn’t you think that some of us might have stuff arranged for when we got back? Worse still, why have you knowingly flown us to a place where we’re more likely to get sick?’

‘You needn’t worry too much about that. Most of Spain has a far lower rate of coronavirus infection than the UK. So we’re probably safer out here than back home.’

‘In which case why have you put blanket quarantine restrictions on the entire country? Wouldn’t it have been better just to target those regions where the infection rate had gone up?’

‘Oh,’ said Shapps. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Michael Gove just said we had to include the whole of Spain because he’s got a holiday in Ibiza booked and he rather fancied an extra two weeks lounging around at home when he gets back.’

The rest of the evening had passed in an uneasy silence. His wife was giving him the cold shoulder and the kids were on their phones, texting their friends about what a moron they had for a dad.

Things were still tense the following morning, but eventually everyone agreed to go down to the beach for lunch. On reflection, a mistake, because it was just his luck that there was one Brit who happened to recognise him, and within minutes he was being harangued by dozens of holiday-makers who were pissed off to find out their summer had been completely ruined.

Shapps’s first instinct had been to try and lie his way out of it. ‘I’m not Grant Shapps,’ he had insisted. ‘I’m Michael Green. I mean, me llamo Miguel Verde.’ But after 20 minutes or so, he had been ground down and forced to give an informal briefing to a bunch of angry strangers. No, he couldn’t give them any advice on claiming stat­utory sick pay or universal credit for the quarantine period. And no, he had no idea how long the self-isolation restrictions would remain in place.

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