One question nobody asked Cummings was what were their usual childcare arrangements - surely a couple of their means, both working, would have a nanny? And even if she was indisposed, in a place the size of London, they'd be able to find a substitute?
Or, why couldn't D. Cummings simply have looked after his own child himself, taking time off work to do so? Or combining working from home with childcare just like vast numbers of other people at the moment. Surely if he's well enough to drive 250 miles he's well enough to look after one small child. The nanny issue is a red herring in my opinion. Most people, including those ill with the virus, manage without one, many in less pleasant and more cramped conditions.
.... because he's convinced that he's vital to the running of the Government and can't be spared for things like child care.
In reality Cummings is the main advisor to the PM and if he's off sick his advisor can't stand in for him and do PM-ey type things like make PM-ey decisions or statements, the PM's designated deputy (a politician) will do it.
But, he has a nanny. He's never had to do the things a parent would normally do, like look after a sick child or look after a child while sick. Unfortunately the nanny obviously believed what his puppets in the Cabinet had been saying, like "stay at home" and "self-isolate if you have symptoms" and thought that meant she shouldn't go into a house where people were sick with symptoms. What a numpty, not letting his nanny know that the rules don't apply to him or anyone he needs to look after his children.
Without any actual experience or knowledge about how to look after a child while ill, what else would a privileged little mummies boy do but head home as fast as he could manage on the A1?
I was a little worried yesterday when former Tory leader Michael (are you thinking what we're thinking? dog-whistle racism / something of the night about him) Howard joined Hate-filled-Brewer and Piers (look at me!) Morgan on the list of people saying sensible and moral things about Cummings. You can imagine my relief that normal service is resumed today after Howard declared that DC had given 'a reasonable explanation.'
Are they deluded or gas-lighting a nation? Or both?
There are indeed some good Tories. Just not very many, it seems.
One question nobody asked Cummings was what were their usual childcare arrangements - surely a couple of their means, both working, would have a nanny? And even if she was indisposed, in a place the size of London, they'd be able to find a substitute?
Or, why couldn't D. Cummings simply have looked after his own child himself, taking time off work to do so? Or combining working from home with childcare just like vast numbers of other people at the moment. Surely if he's well enough to drive 250 miles he's well enough to look after one small child. The nanny issue is a red herring in my opinion. Most people, including those ill with the virus, manage without one, many in less pleasant and more cramped conditions.
I can see why his first (selfish) instinct might be to go somewhere where there is family support and vast amounts of fields for a child to run about in.
What I fail to to understand why his second (unselfish) instinct didn't kick in so he stayed put so no one else was put at risk / followed his own advice. There's a Covid-19 support group in his area who'd have helped out and he's got family near. Or why you'd write an article about it, pretending you'd been ill in London.
Then I remember who we're talking about and why the second instinct would never have kicked in. Because it was never there in the first place.
And then you go for a 30 mile drive with your child in the back of the car to "test your eyesight" ... Because that could have ended so well if your eyesight had been compromised ... Bloody hell.
I didn't watch much of Boris' address to the nation but he looks like a man who knows he's totally out of depth and is wondering when someone will put him out of our misery. How many letters will it take this time?
The one joy is learning a new expression. “That’s Barney Castle!” A term from the middle ages meaning, ‘that’s a pathetic excuse.' Which is so fucking ironic ...
It could go either way. Boris and Dom could ride out the storm, or the wave of anger will not subside. People feel they've been taken for a fool. Oh, you were following the rules literally, (snigger).
Gosh, what a coincidence that the ‘eyesight’ trip to Barnard Castle just happened to take place on Mrs C’s birthday! Do they think we’ve all got ‘mug’ printed on our foreheads?!
The one joy is learning a new expression. “That’s Barney Castle!” A term from the middle ages meaning, ‘that’s a pathetic excuse.' Which is so fucking ironic ...
I can see that phrase Cumming back into popular use.
Gosh, what a coincidence that the ‘eyesight’ trip to Barnard Castle just happened to take place on Mrs C’s birthday! Do they think we’ve all got ‘mug’ printed on our foreheads?!
Some cynics on social media are suggesting that the whole thing was a 2 week holiday for the family. Sounds nice.
It was, of course, very unusual for an advisor to speak publicly, let alone have a press conference. I was imagining that Cummings had watched the shambles Johnson had made of representing his, Cummings', position on Sunday night, rolling his eyes, sighing, and deciding he had to speak for himself if there was any hope at all of people hearing what he wanted them to hear. I can almost hear him muttering to himself 'if you want something done properly you've got to do it yourself' as he made his way to the desk in the rose garden.
Hmm. It's almost possible to actually feel sorry for the egregious Cummings, seeing what a completely useless bumblesqueak his protégé Johnson is actually turning out to be...
I'm still left wondering: what can Cummings possibly have on Johnson that's worse than what we already know? Is this about Russian involvement in Brexit again?
Assuming it is blackmail.
It could just confirm something that we suspect (e.g. an actual e-mail about Accuri)
It could be something that just doesn't make sense to decent people (maybe he once told the truth)
It could be particularly family based
It could show betrayal of his supporters (he's not a real Brexiter)
It could be something so vile, people would just take action (no suggestions)
It could be something that puts his legitimacy in question (no suggestion)
(and probably a few more options)
I don't think there's any way to be sure.
If I were to speculate, and this is not based on anything outside my own head, I would think that the entire party were beholden to Russian donors (remember one of them was interviewed on Sky shortly before talk of lifting the lockdown began in earnest, and one of the donor's demands was to lift the lockdown) and Johnson in particular struck a bargain with Cummings that Cummings could do what he wanted with the country if Johnson became PM. Wouldn't be too hard to weight the intra-party elections for leader in Johnson's favour.
I have thought the party were carrying out orders from some external source for a lot longer than Johnson has been PM, because so many of their decisions are hard to explain any other way.
If Johnson wanted to avoid falling out of a window, that would be explanation enough.
But that's just my speculation for which I have no evidence.
The marginal risk from one man, even if it's Dominic Cummings, driving to Durham and back is small. And so one man might easily persuade himself that there's little harm done if he takes a little excursion in what he might consider to be a good cause.
I think you're underestimating the risk. One man driving to Durham might pose a low risk, but one infected and symptomatic man driving to Durham with his infected and symptomatic wife, with their child in an enclosed space for several hours, raises that risk.
Consider the likelihood that they drove door to door without refuelling or getting out - very unlikely - they now pose a risk to everyone they came into contact with directly or via fomites such as petrol pumps.
Discount the risk to anyone when they arrived at their 2nd home destination, elderly relatives, sisters, whoever.
Do consider that they visited the hospital while they were there. The hospital.
The explanation could be simply that Cummings had been so unpleasant to so many people for so long that thre was no-one othr than his parents towhom he could turn in his hour of need. I think he might be well advised to consider the career trajectory of one Thomas Cromwell, who also became solely dependent on the favour of a capricious ruler. On the other hand, I doubt if the PM could functio without his brain.
According to The Times, the Cabinet was not informed in advance about Cummings' Press Conference. There seems, incidentally, to be a civil war raging in the pages ofThe Times, the First Leader trying to support Cummings-Johnson, probably on instructions from Murdoch HQ, while the columnists and news reports tend to be highly sceptical, always excepting the egregious Quentin Letts, who like another Parliamentary sketch-writer, seems determined 'never to let the Whig dogs have the best of it'.
Me thinks it's not entirely co-incidental that he is one of that somewhat rare species, the Scottish Tory MP, especially given the polls on the Scottish government's handling of lockdown.
The marginal risk from one man, even if it's Dominic Cummings, driving to Durham and back is small. And so one man might easily persuade himself that there's little harm done if he takes a little excursion in what he might consider to be a good cause.
I think you're underestimating the risk. One man driving to Durham might pose a low risk, but one infected and symptomatic man driving to Durham with his infected and symptomatic wife, with their child in an enclosed space for several hours, raises that risk.
Consider the likelihood that they drove door to door without refuelling or getting out - very unlikely - they now pose a risk to everyone they came into contact with directly or via fomites such as petrol pumps.
Discount the risk to anyone when they arrived at their 2nd home destination, elderly relatives, sisters, whoever.
Do consider that they visited the hospital while they were there. The hospital.
What I am unclear about, is whether any of them actually had Covid - the child didn’t (they were tested at the hospital in Durham). At no point in this timeline, for example, is there any mention of either Cummings or his wife actually being tested for Covid.
I can see why his first (selfish) instinct might be to go somewhere where there is family support and vast amounts of fields for a child to run about in.
Sure.
What I fail to to understand why his second (unselfish) instinct didn't kick in so he stayed put so no one else was put at risk / followed his own advice.
Because he thinks he's special. He doesn't think that the rules that govern other people also govern him. It should be obvious, even to him, that millions of people copying him would be a big problem. He just doesn't make the connection "therefore I shouldn't do it".
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
He wouldn't know the truth if he drove over it on the way to Barney Castle. He's create a web of lies, which still fails to give a valid justification for his actions, and has dragged all of his puppets in the Cabinet along with him.
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
He wouldn't know the truth if he drove over it on the way to Barney Castle. He's create a web of lies, which still fails to give a valid justification for his actions, and has dragged all of his puppets in the Cabinet along with him.
Yes. It is staggering.
There's a lot of speculation about the details of his statement - I think the theory that he constructed a story to cover the parts that were proven is likely to be true. Which will be interesting if further evidence emerges.
However, as a couple of lawyers I follow on Twitter have confirmed, if we take his statement at face value, he's confessed to at least two offences.
And yet members of HM Government - with a straight face - are claiming that his statement explains everything satisfactorily and it's time to move on...
I voted for him to consign the Stalinists to the dustbin and end the Brexit malaise so the government could get on with improving society. He achieved both of these things so I was very happy. I am an optimist.
I always knew that although he was the best available person to complete these two tasks at the time (vs Hunt and Corbyn), there were some ways in which he might not live up to the task of five years as PM. I knew he'd have to shrewdly appoint others to do much of the detailed work for example.
It seems he got himself into a bit of a mess by being too reliant on one man, which has caused him to choose the wrong path in not firing him already.
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
He wouldn't know the truth if he drove over it on the way to Barney Castle. He's create a web of lies, which still fails to give a valid justification for his actions, and has dragged all of his puppets in the Cabinet along with him.
Going way back to the Brexshit lies. It worked then, it’s working now.
'government...improving society'
'achieved'
'best available'
'shrewdly'
'a bit of a mess'
Which country, and which person, are you talking about?
Of course it was an achievement unless you think the country would be better off right now with a minority Labour government with Corbyn at the helm (who has already violated the guidance himself btw), manoeuvring to delay Brexit yet again.
Of course he was the best available, as the options were Corbyn and Hunt (whose main failing would have been an inability to defeat Corbyn).
I said I was an optimist. He needed to shrewdly appoint people to help him, obviously he wasn't sufficiently shrewd.
Likewise it is certainly a bit of mess he finds himself in, is it not?
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
He wouldn't know the truth if he drove over it on the way to Barney Castle. He's create a web of lies, which still fails to give a valid justification for his actions, and has dragged all of his puppets in the Cabinet along with him.
I thought his press conference has made things worse, as people have time to see all the lies. What a disgusting shambles, typical of Boris.
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
He wouldn't know the truth if he drove over it on the way to Barney Castle. He's create a web of lies, which still fails to give a valid justification for his actions, and has dragged all of his puppets in the Cabinet along with him.
I thought his press conference has made things worse, as people have time to see all the lies. What a disgusting shambles, typical of Boris.
It's not exactly uplifting to the spirit, is it?
It'll be interesting to see how Johnson copes with questions over the next few days - I doubt if they'll let him have Cummings in the room to prompt him...
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
He wouldn't know the truth if he drove over it on the way to Barney Castle. He's create a web of lies, which still fails to give a valid justification for his actions, and has dragged all of his puppets in the Cabinet along with him.
I thought his press conference has made things worse, as people have time to see all the lies. What a disgusting shambles, typical of Boris.
It's not exactly uplifting to the spirit, is it?
It'll be interesting to see how Johnson copes with questions over the next few days - I doubt if they'll let him have Cummings in the room to prompt him...
What about the effect on testing in future? Will people respond, despite having a couple of liars in charge?
Anyone who doesn't thoroughly and forcefully condemn him in the strongest possible terms for everything he's done since being born is now to be considered an apologist for him. Didn't you get the memo?
O well. I suppose it was inevitable that another apologist for The Mad Mophead should turn up sooner or later...
You didn't actually answer my question, but I guess it's England you're on about?
Apologist? Merely a pragmatist. What was your feasible alternative?
In what ways do you imagine a Labour-SNP government led by Jeremy Corbyn would be worse? Also: "Stalinists"? Seriously? On what basis do you make that accusation?
If anything, they're Menshevik. But you know, working with democratic institutions, holding elections, producing detailed manifestos. So Stalinist it hurts!
(also @yohan300 - [citation needed] on JC flouting lockdown )
Anyone who doesn't thoroughly and forcefully condemn him in the strongest possible terms for everything he's done since being born is now to be considered an apologist for him. Didn't you get the memo?
Ah yes, the kind of wilful exaggeration that you object about when you are the target.
In what ways do you imagine a Labour-SNP government led by Jeremy Corbyn would be worse? Also: "Stalinists"? Seriously? On what basis do you make that accusation?
In every way imaginable. Give me a specific policy area and I'll go into detail.
While people might dislike Cummings for various reasons, Corbyn's aide Seamus Milne was a Stalin apologist. Given Corbyn's general unfitness for office it would have been he who would have been pulling the strings.
In what ways do you imagine a Labour-SNP government led by Jeremy Corbyn would be worse? Also: "Stalinists"? Seriously? On what basis do you make that accusation?
In every way imaginable. Give me a specific policy area and I'll go into detail.
While people might dislike Cummings for various reasons, Corbyn's aide Seamus Milne was a Stalin apologist. Given Corbyn's general unfitness for office it would have been he who would have been pulling the strings.
Let's try public health. Go for it. Cummings is a eugenicist, if we're going to get into comparisons. Besides, Corbyn was nothing like as dependent on Milne as Johnson is on Cummings. Plus, unfit for office? Boris "sacked for lying" Johnson is fit for office?
Forgive me if his virtues have been extolled already, I did just dive in here. I suppose we're now only to discuss how awful the things are that he is doing at the moment.
Comments
He has now become the story and that is distracting everyone - especially the prime minister. This is further reason for him to now resign.
If the PM can’t do without him, then he should resign too. We shouldn’t need Dominic Cummings to help run the country.
Or, why couldn't D. Cummings simply have looked after his own child himself, taking time off work to do so? Or combining working from home with childcare just like vast numbers of other people at the moment. Surely if he's well enough to drive 250 miles he's well enough to look after one small child. The nanny issue is a red herring in my opinion. Most people, including those ill with the virus, manage without one, many in less pleasant and more cramped conditions.
In reality Cummings is the main advisor to the PM and if he's off sick his advisor can't stand in for him and do PM-ey type things like make PM-ey decisions or statements, the PM's designated deputy (a politician) will do it.
Without any actual experience or knowledge about how to look after a child while ill, what else would a privileged little mummies boy do but head home as fast as he could manage on the A1?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52806086
There are good Tories.
Are they deluded or gas-lighting a nation? Or both?
There are indeed some good Tories. Just not very many, it seems.
AFZ
I can see why his first (selfish) instinct might be to go somewhere where there is family support and vast amounts of fields for a child to run about in.
What I fail to to understand why his second (unselfish) instinct didn't kick in so he stayed put so no one else was put at risk / followed his own advice. There's a Covid-19 support group in his area who'd have helped out and he's got family near. Or why you'd write an article about it, pretending you'd been ill in London.
Then I remember who we're talking about and why the second instinct would never have kicked in. Because it was never there in the first place.
And then you go for a 30 mile drive with your child in the back of the car to "test your eyesight" ... Because that could have ended so well if your eyesight had been compromised ... Bloody hell.
I didn't watch much of Boris' address to the nation but he looks like a man who knows he's totally out of depth and is wondering when someone will put him out of our misery. How many letters will it take this time?
The one joy is learning a new expression. “That’s Barney Castle!” A term from the middle ages meaning, ‘that’s a pathetic excuse.' Which is so fucking ironic ...
Some cynics on social media are suggesting that the whole thing was a 2 week holiday for the family. Sounds nice.
If I were to speculate, and this is not based on anything outside my own head, I would think that the entire party were beholden to Russian donors (remember one of them was interviewed on Sky shortly before talk of lifting the lockdown began in earnest, and one of the donor's demands was to lift the lockdown) and Johnson in particular struck a bargain with Cummings that Cummings could do what he wanted with the country if Johnson became PM. Wouldn't be too hard to weight the intra-party elections for leader in Johnson's favour.
I have thought the party were carrying out orders from some external source for a lot longer than Johnson has been PM, because so many of their decisions are hard to explain any other way.
If Johnson wanted to avoid falling out of a window, that would be explanation enough.
But that's just my speculation for which I have no evidence.
I think you're underestimating the risk. One man driving to Durham might pose a low risk, but one infected and symptomatic man driving to Durham with his infected and symptomatic wife, with their child in an enclosed space for several hours, raises that risk.
Consider the likelihood that they drove door to door without refuelling or getting out - very unlikely - they now pose a risk to everyone they came into contact with directly or via fomites such as petrol pumps.
Discount the risk to anyone when they arrived at their 2nd home destination, elderly relatives, sisters, whoever.
Do consider that they visited the hospital while they were there. The hospital.
Now look at this speculation from a public health prof, I don't think that's just hot air.
I appreciate that this post was now 3 pages back, but YOU HAD TO SCROLL PAST IT TO GET TO THE ONE YOU QUOTED.
Knock it off.
DT
HH
Me thinks it's not entirely co-incidental that he is one of that somewhat rare species, the Scottish Tory MP, especially given the polls on the Scottish government's handling of lockdown.
What I am unclear about, is whether any of them actually had Covid - the child didn’t (they were tested at the hospital in Durham). At no point in this timeline, for example, is there any mention of either Cummings or his wife actually being tested for Covid.
Sure.
Because he thinks he's special. He doesn't think that the rules that govern other people also govern him. It should be obvious, even to him, that millions of people copying him would be a big problem. He just doesn't make the connection "therefore I shouldn't do it".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059?SThisFB
He made this claim in his statement so that's one definite lie.
Yes. It is staggering.
There's a lot of speculation about the details of his statement - I think the theory that he constructed a story to cover the parts that were proven is likely to be true. Which will be interesting if further evidence emerges.
However, as a couple of lawyers I follow on Twitter have confirmed, if we take his statement at face value, he's confessed to at least two offences.
And yet members of HM Government - with a straight face - are claiming that his statement explains everything satisfactorily and it's time to move on...
Staggering.
AFZ
I always knew that although he was the best available person to complete these two tasks at the time (vs Hunt and Corbyn), there were some ways in which he might not live up to the task of five years as PM. I knew he'd have to shrewdly appoint others to do much of the detailed work for example.
It seems he got himself into a bit of a mess by being too reliant on one man, which has caused him to choose the wrong path in not firing him already.
'achieved'
'best available'
'shrewdly'
'a bit of a mess'
Which country, and which person, are you talking about?
Going way back to the Brexshit lies. It worked then, it’s working now.
Of course it was an achievement unless you think the country would be better off right now with a minority Labour government with Corbyn at the helm (who has already violated the guidance himself btw), manoeuvring to delay Brexit yet again.
Of course he was the best available, as the options were Corbyn and Hunt (whose main failing would have been an inability to defeat Corbyn).
I said I was an optimist. He needed to shrewdly appoint people to help him, obviously he wasn't sufficiently shrewd.
Likewise it is certainly a bit of mess he finds himself in, is it not?
You didn't actually answer my question, but I guess it's England you're on about?
I thought his press conference has made things worse, as people have time to see all the lies. What a disgusting shambles, typical of Boris.
Apologist? Merely a pragmatist. What was your feasible alternative?
It's not exactly uplifting to the spirit, is it?
It'll be interesting to see how Johnson copes with questions over the next few days - I doubt if they'll let him have Cummings in the room to prompt him...
What about the effect on testing in future? Will people respond, despite having a couple of liars in charge?
Anyone who doesn't thoroughly and forcefully condemn him in the strongest possible terms for everything he's done since being born is now to be considered an apologist for him. Didn't you get the memo?
That, surely, is not pejorative.
YMMV.
In what ways do you imagine a Labour-SNP government led by Jeremy Corbyn would be worse? Also: "Stalinists"? Seriously? On what basis do you make that accusation?
(also @yohan300 - [citation needed] on JC flouting lockdown )
Ah yes, the kind of wilful exaggeration that you object about when you are the target.
In every way imaginable. Give me a specific policy area and I'll go into detail.
While people might dislike Cummings for various reasons, Corbyn's aide Seamus Milne was a Stalin apologist. Given Corbyn's general unfitness for office it would have been he who would have been pulling the strings.
Move along, please - nothing to see here.
Let's try public health. Go for it. Cummings is a eugenicist, if we're going to get into comparisons. Besides, Corbyn was nothing like as dependent on Milne as Johnson is on Cummings. Plus, unfit for office? Boris "sacked for lying" Johnson is fit for office?
Forgive me if his virtues have been extolled already, I did just dive in here. I suppose we're now only to discuss how awful the things are that he is doing at the moment.