Amid 'Partygate' at Downing Street, I couldn't pull rank as my father was dying - Neil McNicholas

These are the individuals whose judgment and opinion he apparently valued.

When the initial accusation came to light of a party being held at No 10 in apparent contravention (some might say defiance) of the Covid restrictions that the rest of the country was required by law to observe, people were rightly outraged. But now it would appear there were 16 such gatherings!

Again a total lack of judgment that such goings-on were wrong by any definition under the circumstances of the time, and apparently no concept or concern that those activities would be found out.

They could also have been putting lives at risk – something the rest of us were being asked by those party-goers not to do.

In November 2020 my father was seriously ill and dying. He was in a nursing home which had courageously kept Covid at bay by strictly enforcing visitor restrictions and controls.

As a priest, I could probably have insisted on being allowed into the home to visit him in order to anoint him before he died (what most people would know as “the last rites” of the Church), but I felt that in a sense I would be “pulling rank” over other family members with loved ones in the same situation as my father was.

It also didn’t feel right to possibly put other residents at risk by requesting an exception to the Covid controls in force and especially when my father, who was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, wouldn’t even know I was there.

But also, from a theological point of view, I firmly believe that God’s ability to bestow that final blessing on my father wasn’t restricted to where I was at the time.

It was a matter of judgment, and my decision was made in light of the restrictions we were all being urged to observe out of regard and concern for other people as well as our own health and well-being.

It has been the same with the celebration of Mass. Since the beginning of the pandemic we were required to devise a system of seating in church under the “two metre” social distancing rules.

This immediately reduced the number of people able to attend services in church (including baptisms, weddings and funerals) but we accepted the situation because it had to be done.

None of us will forget the television pictures of the Queen sitting all by herself at Prince Philip’s funeral because it was the right thing to do. If anyone could have “pulled rank” and requested an exception to the rules, it was surely the Queen, but she didn’t. Meanwhile the parties at No 10 continued.

The rules have been especially respected and observed by the elderly and those with health concerns in line with the Government’s recommendations referred to at the time as “shielding”.

It was very difficult for people at the beginning, but they accepted the need for such controls and restrictions because people were being taken to hospital with Covid symptoms in great numbers and also people were dying of Covid also in great numbers.

But in the shade of No 10, the rules were being ignored, presumably thinking they were safe in that shade (not from Covid but from the public gaze). The lack of judgment and the insensitivity – not to mention the presumed illegality – is staggering.

From a personal point of view, I reconciled myself to the circumstances surrounding my father’s death at the time and, as explained, fully believe I did everything I could for him as his son and as a priest.

But for many who were unable to have the wedding ceremonies they planned, or the funerals their loved ones deserved, that reconciliation and healing may not be quite so easily achieved and may leave emotional scars that could be a long time healing.

Mr Johnson’s repeated apologies are hard to accept when they are founded on the total lack of judgment and honesty that has followed in the wake of the “partygate” scandal. And is the reality that he is sorry for what he did, or for the fact that he got caught?

Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Yarm.