Like lots of people, I have been pondering the fact that while we were all locked up indoors this time last year under strict government orders not to meet anyone outside a bubble, members of the Downing Street staff were themselves having a big Christmas party. The thing I find odd about this is not whether or not the Prime Minister was there or whether or not the police are in a position to investigate retrospectively, but the fact that forty or fifty civil servants and senior policy advisors thought that it was appropriate to do precisely the opposite of what everyone else had been instructed to do, not least by those people who were themselves in the room. Did they not think it might look a bit odd if and when it came to light as it was almost bound to do ? In fact, what seems particularly odd is that it did not come to light at the time and that the press decided to keep quiet about it, as well as the police standing outside the door as guests rolled out drunk into the night.