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Post by n1david on May 25, 2020 21:58:36 GMT
One of the advisors I saw on tv said most journalist hate DC anyway so it is not going to be a very unbiased view That may be in part because DC has spent a career condemning the media. Watching today's statement, it struck me that it's an interesting strategy to spend a lot of your time criticising the media, whilst relying on that same media to properly represent his actions. Most people won't have watched the entire statement, they'll take their view from the very media that DC spent a lot of today attacking. Even if you think his perspective on UK mainstream media is right (which I don't), this seems like a short-sighted strategy. As seems to be proven by tomorrow's front pages... |
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 25, 2020 21:58:42 GMT
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Post by vdcni on May 25, 2020 22:13:26 GMT
I can sort of understand why he did some of it, but really the media here has a lot to answer to as it whips up public feeling in a very unsavoury way. One of the advisors I saw on tv said most journalist hate DC anyway so it is not going to be a very unbiased view. I have no great feeling on Dominic either way. I just wish some of the focus on the media could be on the real issues at the moment rather than on whether what one individual did. Lets be honest most of us know or have seen pictures of people who have broken the restrictions. While that advisor whoever it was is completely unbiased I suppose. I notice that a lot of the talking heads who have been wheeled out to support Cummings had a very different view of the other officials who have been caught out for breaking lockdown. And the point of the anger people feel is that many people didn't break the rules or if they did it was minor infractions not driving across the country when you're supposed to be in self isolation and then popping out to a beauty spot while lying about it and trying to make out the stories weren't true. I do agree there's more we could focus on like the fact we now have the worst death rate relative to the population in the world and the Sunday Times report about how badly the government handled the initial few weeks of this and how many extra people have died as a result of their dithering. |
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Post by adolphus on May 26, 2020 0:30:14 GMT
The Government's chief aide couldn't find anyone in Durham to give his eyesight the ok? It's gobsmacking what the elites expect the plebs to believe
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Post by djp on May 26, 2020 1:22:38 GMT
londonpostie , sadly I believe you are right, will be interesting to see the way the papers go tonight as there . Mirror and Mail are carrying almost identical headlines. "No apologies, no regrets" Which is the real news . Its obvious why a left wing , pro remain paper is on the rampage after 4 years of defeats at Cumming's hands?
The mystery in ll this is why the Mail's owner has turned on Boris - perhaps he's not right wing enough for them?
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Post by djp on May 26, 2020 1:42:53 GMT
I can sort of understand why he did some of it, but really the media here has a lot to answer to as it whips up public feeling in a very unsavoury way. One of the advisors I saw on tv said most journalist hate DC anyway so it is not going to be a very unbiased view. I have no great feeling on Dominic either way. I just wish some of the focus on the media could be on the real issues at the moment rather than on whether what one individual did. Lets be honest most of us know or have seen pictures of people who have broken the restrictions. While that advisor whoever it was is completely unbiased I suppose. I notice that a lot of the talking heads who have been wheeled out to support Cummings had a very different view of the other officials who have been caught out for breaking lockdown. And the point of the anger people feel is that many people didn't break the rules or if they did it was minor infractions not driving across the country when you're supposed to be in self isolation and then popping out to a beauty spot while lying about it and trying to make out the stories weren't true. I do agree there's more we could focus on like the fact we now have the worst death rate relative to the population in the world and the Sunday Times report about how badly the government handled the initial few weeks of this and how many extra people have died as a result of their dithering. it might be but its just untrue. No one much thinks the Chinese figures are not missing some zeros. Many countries are counting different things different ways , Iran, India. Pakistan , Iraq, Brazil, Turkey , and Russia probably have no idea how many cases they really have. US figures are widely regarded as too low. Several European countries have higher per capita death rates. And Italy discovered 19000 previously unrecorded deaths from covid19 last week.
And how bad an epidemic you get depends on a whole sets of factors - notably if it arrives in just one or two small clusters (Korea) or multiple areas at once, population density and how urban you are, whether you have large numbers in vulnerable groups, whether you are an island that could seal its borders (Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, NZ) , how many people you had overseas who you couldn't keep out , and decisions made over the last 30 years, or more, on how to structure public health, hospitals and social care. There is no Harry Potter magic wand that suddenly creates capabilities no government ever created before.
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Post by djp on May 26, 2020 2:04:58 GMT
The Government's chief aide couldn't find anyone in Durham to give his eyesight the ok? It's gobsmacking what the elites expect the plebs to believe Do you think there's any opticians open anywhere?
Covid19 can attack almost any organ including the eyes, and can enter via the eyes mucking up the nerves as it does so, but it would take a pretty thorough hospital examination to check whether he had a problem with his pressures, fields, blood vessels, retina, or covid clots from elsewhere , or with his optical nerves or brain. And if you have ever had significant eye problems the first thing you learn is that what your brain computes that it sees still may not be a true reflection of whats going on - the brain is often good at ignoring whats going wrong..
The smart plebs will realise that if you have a visual problem one day, that gives you some concerns about driving , the only way to see if its still around the next, is to try and see if it comes back, or is a problem driving . Your only other option is to stay where you are until opticians come back, or you can get an ophthalmology appointment in weeks or months time.
Cumming's story makes perfect sense. The alternative that he drove near to a beauty spot but went straight home before getting there actually doesn't.
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 26, 2020 4:42:21 GMT
djp wouldn’t the common sense solution be that his wife drove back to London thereby negating the need to drive to Barnard Castle and putting his family and other motorists lives at risk if his eyesight failed.
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Post by vdcni on May 26, 2020 5:55:55 GMT
If you believe the he drove to a local beauty spot to test his eyesight with his wife and small child in the back on his wife's birthday line then you clearly just want to be lied to.
I'll also point out that driving with an undiagnosed visual impairment is flat out against the law
Then again you probably also believe he was entitled to drive across the country against all government rules about self isolation.
There's an even simpler explanation behind all this, they wanted to do all these things and they didn't think the rules applied to them.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 8:30:02 GMT
Thank you djp and theatreian for your very sensible and non-partisan posts!
The hysterical loss of all logic and common sense among the UK populace is one of the most terrifying things to come out of this whole episode.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 26, 2020 8:41:48 GMT
Am I the only one who found the tone of that press conference disturbing? It genuinely was like someone in the dock as one by one his accusers silently stepped up to interrogate him. More like the Salem witch trials than a press conference, and all led by the terrible trio Kuenssberg, Peston and Rigby. It’s a bit rich any of that lot talking about the political elite when the pecking order in media circles is very obvious. And despite being supposedly the creme de la creme of british TV news reporting they all just asked variants of the same questions. Dire.
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 26, 2020 8:42:36 GMT
Gove is having fun on the interview rounds this morning, with each interview the ridiculousness of the defences become more apparent and he is currently trending on Twitter and reading the tweets couldn’t find many which are complementary.
At one point in the Kay Burley interview he even tried to dig himself out of the absurdity by lying that he was allowed to drive for exercise which was not allowed until long after his return to London.
Looks as if one Tory MP and Minister has had enough, Douglass Ross the Under Secretary of State for Scotland has resigned .
In addition the foreign newspapers consider us a laughing stock and our international reputation if not already diminished is taking a hammering.
Believe Keir Starmer is taking Napoleon’s advice:
“Never Interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself”
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 8:56:01 GMT
Am I the only one who found the tone of that press conference disturbing? It genuinely was like someone in the dock as one by one his accusers silently stepped up to interrogate him. More like the Salem witch trials than a press conference, and all led by the terrible trio Kuenssberg, Peston and Rigby. It’s a bit rich any of that lot talking about the political elite when the pecking order in media circles is very obvious. And despite being supposedly the creme de la creme of british TV news reporting they all just asked variants of the same questions. Dire. Quick point at the media! Blame them! Blame them! |
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 8:56:21 GMT
And despite being supposedly the creme de la creme of british TV news reporting they all just asked variants of the same questions. Dire. That is what you do though when people don't answer the question, or give an implausible answer - dig into it and eventually they will trip themselves up. Classic cross-examination technique. I find it beyond astonishing that anyone is defending Cummings in this. He chose to break, or at the very least bend, rules that he basically wrote and which his boss has constantly implored the country NOT to bend. Any other public official would and has been sacked or pressed to resign for less, this is hypocrisy at its worst and yet apparently Cummings is a victim? Give me strength, the real victims in all of this are the people who haven't seen or been able to say goodbye to loved ones because they did obey the rules, and those who will die as a result of any additional flare ups as people now see no need to respect rules and guidance government employees can't even be bothered to respect. They are the ones who deserve sympathy, not Cummings. He is getting off very lightly and deserves everything the press are throwing at him. |
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 8:59:14 GMT
Do you think there's any opticians open anywhere? Some will be doing emergency appointments, otherwise he could have gone to A&E. Driving when visually impaired is endangering other motorists, he should be in trouble for that alone. If you must test your eyesight by driving (which is ridiculous in the first place), do it on private land. But some people seem to be going to extraordinary lengths to defend his multiple instances of idiocy, so I'm not sure there is much else to be said. |
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 26, 2020 9:01:18 GMT
@posterj the Minister who resigned summarised your point excellently
I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government. I cannot in good faith tell them they are all wrong and one senior advisor was right.
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Post by theatreian on May 26, 2020 9:24:48 GMT
Thank you djp and theatreian for your very sensible and non-partisan posts! As I said I have no great feeling on Dominic either way. I watched his whole interview on tv and really as far as I could see in most part he did what he did for the sake of his son. It was no great advantage to have to drive 260 miles I am sure. Anyway there are people as he dais himself who would have done things differently. The real issue now is getting on with this crisis. On our local tv news the coverage was more balanced as they had one member of the public from each side. However there will always be the view that what he did was wrong , which I can understand. Lets hope that the situation can be resolved without too much bitterness. |
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Post by bordeaux on May 26, 2020 9:33:54 GMT
Thank you djp and theatreian for your very sensible and non-partisan posts! As I said I have no great feeling on Dominic either way. I watched his whole interview on tv and really as far as I could see in most part he did what he did for the sake of his son. It was no great advantage to have to drive 260 miles I am sure. Anyway there are people as he dais himself who would have done things differently. The real issue now is getting on with this crisis. On our local tv news the coverage was more balanced as they had one member of the public from each side. However there will always be the view that what he did was wrong , which I can understand. Lets hope that the situation can be resolved without too much bitterness. Except for the fact that you call him Dominic, which sounds affectionate to me. In what way did he do what he did for the sake of his son? How did his son benefit? Initially it was said he drove up there for child-care but now Gove is saying Cummings' wife wasn't displaying symptoms. If thousands of other people in similar circumstances had acted as he did, how well would the lockdown have worked? In what way is driving to Barnard Castle with possibly COVID-affected eyesight of benefit to his son, when his wife could have driven them back to London? All of these things were against the regulations and his actions undermine the government's policy. He has shown there is one rule for Conservative politicians and advisors and one rule for the rest of us. |
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Post by xanady on May 26, 2020 9:35:51 GMT
I personally haven’t seen my own father for ten weeks due to his health issues and have been very stressed about not being able to go and see him.Organising shopping nearly 80 miles away etc has been a very difficult situation.He is self-isolating and now absolutely raging at Cummings behaviour.He WAS a Tory voter until this story broke!!
People have missed funerals and will never ever get over that guilt for the rest of their lives.Weddings,anniversaries,birthdays all shelved because the British people tried to follow the rules.
One of my neighbours who works in a hospital STILL living in a caravan on the drive to protect her own family...incredible!
Businesses are dying including theatres,cinemas,my friends cafe bar which is on its knees as a case in point and for anyone to defend Cummings reckless and self-centred behaviour is beyond belief.The man is contemptuous of authority and deserves to be held to account by the press.He chose to do a press conference himself yesterday so he must be prepared to face the full unbridled spotlight of the media.
A govt minister has quit this morning with a troubled conscience.Hope more will follow.
People like Cummings could help to spread the disease and in the last few days people are now thinking that lockdown is over as a result of this story.If the second spike comes it will be with a vengeance.
Surprised but glad to see the Daily Mail voicing the concerns of many middle-Englanders....and yes,my father is a Daily Mail subscriber.
Stay safe everyone.As Lyn Paul said on twitter yesterday-we all need to keep following the rules,even if Cummings didn’t
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 26, 2020 10:09:11 GMT
I think that anyone who uses DC’s behaviour to justify themselves breaking the rules are the people who have been breaking them anyway. And there have been plenty of those.
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Post by vdcni on May 26, 2020 10:09:41 GMT
Thank you djp and theatreian for your very sensible and non-partisan posts! The hysterical loss of all logic and common sense among the UK populace is one of the most terrifying things to come out of this whole episode. People have been using common sense and logic - they have gone against every emotional instinct they possess and have missed seeing relatives before they died, have been unable to offer comfort to grieving parents and children, have struggled to keep to the rules and stay at home while dealing with difficult childcare situations. But they did it for the good of the country, the NHS and of others, because we were asked to do it, that those were the rules for the benefit of all. Now we find that a man, involved in setting those rules with more access to resources than 99% of the population broke them because they were inconvenient and because he clearly didn't care about the effect that might have and just as bad has meant that cabinet ministers have lined up to say - well you all could have done that if you really cared about your families, the rules could have always been broken any time you felt like it. |
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Post by talkingheads on May 26, 2020 10:27:53 GMT
I think that anyone who uses DC’s behaviour to justify themselves breaking the rules are the people who have been breaking them anyway. And there have been plenty of those. But it's more the fact that they CAN use his behaviour to justify breaking the rules. How can any semblance of governing be done when they are a total laughing stock? |
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Post by theglenbucklaird on May 26, 2020 10:38:48 GMT
Am I the only one who found the tone of that press conference disturbing? It genuinely was like someone in the dock as one by one his accusers silently stepped up to interrogate him. More like the Salem witch trials than a press conference, and all led by the terrible trio Kuenssberg, Peston and Rigby. It’s a bit rich any of that lot talking about the political elite when the pecking order in media circles is very obvious. And despite being supposedly the creme de la creme of british TV news reporting they all just asked variants of the same questions. Dire. Yep |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 26, 2020 10:46:12 GMT
My mum agreed!
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Post by zahidf on May 26, 2020 10:48:04 GMT
Cummings and the govt are treating us like mugs.
Cummings broke quarantine and went to Durham because he wanted to spend it in his country estate rather than in Islington. All the stuff about his son is basic emotional manipulation and I think its disgusting the way he is using it as an excuse.
The Bernard castle eye testing is even more ridiculous. He was testing his eyes on a 1 hour drive with his son in the backseat??? Rubbish. It was his wifes birthday and they fancied a day trip to a local beauty spot.
People are disgusted because they aren't stupid. Its really obvious what happened and they are treating us like idiots.
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