Over the past nine weeks the message was simple: 'Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives'.
No-one was fooled. We knew the score.
A decimated NHS was hopelessly unprepared to cope with a pandemic. We were happy to buy into the messaging. After all it was in our interests.
Underpinning our commitment to see this through we understood - no matter our backgrounds - the coronavirus did not distinguish between king or kitchen hand, prime minister or postman.
We faced the threat from a common enemy - Covid-19. We pulled together because that is what you do. Equal stakeholders and front line defenders of the most vulnerable.
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To achieve the scale of the effort required we agreed to suspend some of our freedoms. It was like volunteering for National Service.
Just as in war people rose to the challenge. Some showed exceptional bravery. Others were stoic in the face of extraordinary circumstances. We were even forgiving of the dithering ways of political leaders.
But throughout all of this noble activity, we had Dominic Cummings lurking in the background.
The nerdy half-Rasputin, half-Blofeld; the Downing Street Stasi whose glances apparently strike fear into ministers and civil servants alike.
A ruthless and calculating political operator; born into a privileged family, this was the man who masterminded a Brexit campaign with simple slogans devoid of substance.
He found the perfect messenger to deliver those hollow soundbites: a rakish politician, eloquent and engaging but seemingly unencumbered by principle - Boris Johnson.
They are now conjoined from the hip and to the head. Cummings does the thinking and Johnson delivers the performances. A sort of ventriloquist act where the dummy is more Lord Charles than Devil Doll.
In fairness, Cummings is clearly clever. After all, he duped a nation into acting against its own best economic interests.
He also convinced life-long Labour voters to dump their class loyalties and overwhelmingly elect the most elitist and right-wing Conservative party in 30 years.
The hawks in this Tory government make Margaret Thatcher look like Mother Teresa.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron called Cummings "a career psychopath". Cameron would appear to be on the money.
Don't be fooled by the casual track suits and apparent disdain for convention - Cummings covets power and the rarefied halls of Whitehall.
That is why, despite the revelations of the past few weeks, he clings to power like a barnacle to a boat. A boat called Boris.
That is why this malleable Prime Minister gave him the Rose Garden to do an unprecedented media interview last week.
Usually a policy adviser or aide is a disposable mudguard for a politician in trouble but not in this relationship.
The Cummings interview was pure farce and his so called explanations had more holes than a block of Emmental cheese.
If he was looking sympathy, he invited scorn. If he wanted to demonstrate his intelligence, he plumbed the depths of incredulity.
Cummings appeared smug about his own performance, smirking as he walked away from the journalists.
Why should I worry about an individual who drives 30 miles to test his eyesight? Or who expects acceptance of the coincidence of heading to a beauty spot during lockdown on the day of his wife's birthday? And who was the source of his expert medical advice?
I am much more worried by the malign imbalance of power between this Prime Minister and his employee.
Clearly Cummings has not got the moral fibre to resign to save the blushes of his boss and Johnson equally lacks the vertebrae to sack him. As one UK commentator put it, "The master is now the servant and the servant is now the master."
This is a truly frightening prospect - especially as half the cabinet have now prostrated themselves like postulants before Cummings.
But hubris is the great leveller and Cummings in the Rose Garden paved the way for a meeting.
