20 May 2020: what was UK doing while No 10 aide organised a party?

At the time, there was no mixing indoors, non-essential shops were shut, and hospitality businesses remained closed

• Leaked email about drinks event at No 10 explodes Johnson's defences

To many, May 2020 may feel like a lifetime ago, so much has happened in the last 20 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On 20 May 2020, when the prime minister's private secretary was inviting colleagues to bring their own booze for socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden to make the most of this lovely weather", the rest of the country was in a very different position.