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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 11:15:47 GMT
On yougov just now and 83% think it DID break the rules and 80% think he SHOULD resign
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Post by theatremadness on May 26, 2020 11:21:14 GMT
The fact is, is that Dominic Cummings' son, from London, ended up in a hospital in Durham. The whole point of lockdown was to avoid this. That is the short and long of it. No attempt made to contact friends or family in London before the move to Durham. Nothing that happened in Durham couldn't have happened in London. It is inexcusable. I'm not giving airtime to that ridiculous eyesight comment. If his eyesight was that bad and he had his wife and child in the car, what could have happened? Yet some of you have swallowed it and are completely happy. Well more fool you. If you watched that statement and ended up on Cummings' side, you are brainwashed. Cummings is your Derren Brown, there's no two ways about it, and you are too deep into it to ever believe otherwise. The UK now has the worst death rates per million in the world. But even that won't distract his blind followers. PM's approval rating is now -1%. Overall Government rating is -2%. âLefty-loony biasâ doesn't wash here, as Daily Mail are still on the attack. Certainly non-left wing critics such as Piers Morgan, Iain Dale, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Tim Montgomerie and Iain Martin are, whatever you think of them, certainly not completely on the side of Cummings. A Scottish Tory minister resigned today over aspects of Cummings' âexplanationâ that he has trouble with. Turns out one of them does have a spine! Michael Gove tells Kay Burley that when Cummings drove to Barnard Castle, the rules allowed people to drive for exercise. Article about being able to drive for a walk weren't published until April 16th, definitely after he returned to work. Reasonable excuses certainly did not include âtesting eyesightâ. Burley asks what is the government advice if you are struggling with eyesight. Gove says to seek medical advice. Then goes on to defend Cummings' trip to Barnard Castle! PM says his eyesight has weakened since being ill so he understands. Shame there's articles from 2014 where he talks about being as blind as a bat! Wake up!!! We are being lied to every single day. Worse, we are being gaslit. Why are some of you OK with that? There's been some retweets of an edit made to Cummings' blog in mid-April, the day he returned to work, warning about coronavirus, which Cummings now claims he warned about in his blog all along. And blaming the media?! Trump tactics in full force in UK now. The most inaccurate media accounts of this whole sorry affair are his and his wife's.
Didn't think Iâd ever live in a society where people enjoyed being gaslit. That is highly disturbing.
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Post by zahidf on May 26, 2020 11:23:51 GMT
The fact is, is that Dominic Cummings' son, from London, ended up in a hospital in Durham. The whole point of lockdown was to avoid this. That is the short and long of it. No attempt made to contact friends or family in London before the move to Durham. Nothing that happened in Durham couldn't have happened in London. It is inexcusable. I'm not giving airtime to that ridiculous eyesight comment. If his eyesight was that bad and he had his wife and child in the car, what could have happened? Yet some of you have swallowed it and are completely happy. Well more fool you. If you watched that statement and ended up on Cummings' side, you are brainwashed. Cummings is your Derren Brown, there's no two ways about it, and you are too deep into it to ever believe otherwise. The UK now has the worst death rates per million in the world. But even that won't distract his blind followers. PM's approval rating is now -1%. Overall Government rating is -2%. âLefty-loony biasâ doesn't wash here, as Daily Mail are still on the attack. Certainly non-left wing critics such as Piers Morgan, Iain Dale, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Tim Montgomerie and Iain Martin are, whatever you think of them, certainly not completely on the side of Cummings. There's been some retweets of an edit made to Cummings' blog in mid-April, the day he returned to work, warning about coronavirus, which Cummings now claims he warned about in his blog all along. Didn't think Iâd ever live in a society where people enjoyed being gaslit. That is highly disturbing. I think its clear what the public thinks. The question is whether Boris cares: what's more important to him? an effective public health policy or dominic Cummings career? its clear he'd rather risk the lives of thousands of people rather than get rid of Cummings |
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 11:45:53 GMT
I know what you mean - it struck me too. The cynic in me thinks it was deliberate - Cummings says repeatedly that the media are being unfair to him, then a bunch of journalists ask him the same questions in different ways (generally questions heâs already answered), which starts to look rather bullying. |
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Post by talkingheads on May 26, 2020 11:57:57 GMT
Even Private Eye wouldn't say something this ridiculous. Gove going well below the bottom of the barrel.
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Post by londonpostie on May 26, 2020 12:00:07 GMT
tbh, it was odd an employee was giving a presser in the Prime Minister's Rose Garden.Let's hope the press don't also find out a cleaner did the same.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 12:01:22 GMT
@posterj the Minister who resigned summarised your point excellently I have constituents who didnât get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didnât 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. Iâm not sure what it is about this that people donât get. To do any of the things your constituents wanted to, they would have had to expose others outside the immediate home they were staying in to risk. Cummings kept his family unit together. They did travel, but didnât stop along the way and at their destination remained isolated together. Yes, the kid went to hospital but if theyâd been in London heâd have just been taken to hospital there. So thereâs no difference, really. On other points: The trip to Barnard Castle was made when Cummings was no longer infectious. Doing a test route doesnât seem weird to me. (Eg If Iâve been ill for a period of time, I always take a walk/short bus trip to see if I think my legs will carry me safely back to work the next day.) The people who volunteered to help with childcare in Durham were in an age group less likely to be hard hit by coronavirus, should they contract it. They could also easily isolate away from elderly relatives if needed. Given the choices Cummings had, I canât say I wouldnât have done the same. Those who are so wisely commenting: why didnât his wife drive? Why didnât someone in London do childcare? Maybe his wife doesnât like driving on motorways/busy roads. Maybe she was keeping the child amused on the journey home (the lack of understanding on here about how small children behave would be hilarious if it wasnât leading to some rather unpleasant comments being made). Maybe the person in London (supposedly a family member) who people think could have done childcare was in an at-risk group. Or lived with someone who was. Or couldnât meet the childâs needs. And itâs not like they could bring in a nanny - that would clearly be dangerous for the nannyâs health. Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! |
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Post by londonpostie on May 26, 2020 12:08:37 GMT
Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! I found that fascinating becasue I don't recall it happening before. Even his neighbours.
I didn't hear harassment, I did hear one neighbour relating her experience of lockdown - of no childcare, or unable to see elderly relatives (she was heard in the video). I also heard others wryly ask about the castle. People who may have relatives who died, as many in London in particular do, talking at him as he ambled down his street.
No harassment though. Do tell us more about that?
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Post by n1david on May 26, 2020 12:17:11 GMT
Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! He lives round the corner from me, and I regularly walked along his road during my daily exercise. There had been no crowds and no harassment until this weekend. I absolutely don't approve of it now, but to suggest that the scenes on TV now were a regular occurrence leading to his decision to leave London is not the case. |
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Post by vdcni on May 26, 2020 12:21:41 GMT
I'm not sure what it is that people don't get.
The rules were very clear that, particularly if you were self isolating, you do not leave your house, you certainly do not travel miles across the country and risk spreading the disease. At one point they were considering a London specific lockdown as the situation was so much worse here. Even if they didn't stop, and we don't know they didn't, what if they had crashed or broken down on the way and then spread the virus to anyone that came to help them. That was one of the points of not travelling!
They also said don't go to second homes to prevent rural areas with weaker healthcare services from being overwhelmed - taking his child to a hospital there rather than London is very different.
And who in their right mind takes their small child with them in a car on a 60 mile drive to test their eyesight. I mean they supposedly went all that way to access childcare so surely someone else could have looked after him for the sake of one drive.
And so what if they were potentially in the right age group, what is so important about Cummings need for childcare that enables him to break the rules but not the millions of other people in the same situation. Not that they actually used the supposed childcare in the end.
Maybe his wife doesn't like to drive that far, though of course the roads were much quieter than usual but seriously - she might have had to look after the child on the drive - why couldn't he do that. Have I gone back in time 50 years and only women are capable of looking after children!?
And we have no evidence of this alleged harassment - is there any indication that he asked for security, it only seems to have been mentioned yesterday when you think they might have mentioned it before. Surely the police would have good cause for arresting people harassing him during a nationwide lockdown. Any what had changed about the situation that they were happy to come back to London.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 12:26:58 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. The few left supporting him arenât generally doing it because they support him, itâs that they are aggrieved at their lives being put on hold for the last few months. His defence is risible, myopic and self serving. Step back and see the wider picture; he is trying to save himself at the expense of any moral authority that the government were still clinging onto and trashing the public health of the country (health professionals I follow are as angry as I have ever heard). A man who isnât as self serving as Cummings would realise that. |
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Post by talkingheads on May 26, 2020 12:35:05 GMT
@posterj the Minister who resigned summarised your point excellently I have constituents who didnât get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didnât 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. Iâm not sure what it is about this that people donât get. To do any of the things your constituents wanted to, they would have had to expose others outside the immediate home they were staying in to risk. Cummings kept his family unit together. They did travel, but didnât stop along the way and at their destination remained isolated together. Yes, the kid went to hospital but if theyâd been in London heâd have just been taken to hospital there. So thereâs no difference, really. On other points: The trip to Barnard Castle was made when Cummings was no longer infectious. Doing a test route doesnât seem weird to me. (Eg If Iâve been ill for a period of time, I always take a walk/short bus trip to see if I think my legs will carry me safely back to work the next day.) The people who volunteered to help with childcare in Durham were in an age group less likely to be hard hit by coronavirus, should they contract it. They could also easily isolate away from elderly relatives if needed. Given the choices Cummings had, I canât say I wouldnât have done the same. Those who are so wisely commenting: why didnât his wife drive? Why didnât someone in London do childcare? Maybe his wife doesnât like driving on motorways/busy roads. Maybe she was keeping the child amused on the journey home (the lack of understanding on here about how small children behave would be hilarious if it wasnât leading to some rather unpleasant comments being made). Maybe the person in London (supposedly a family member) who people think could have done childcare was in an at-risk group. Or lived with someone who was. Or couldnât meet the childâs needs. And itâs not like they could bring in a nanny - that would clearly be dangerous for the nannyâs health. Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! That's exactly why people are angry. He knowingly took the virus to Durham and spread it to a regional hospital much less prepared to deal with it than one in Central London. |
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 26, 2020 12:41:43 GMT
@jeanhunt I am comfortable with the rationale for the drive to Durham as not being a parent I am not in a position to comment on what you would do to protect your children, in my opinion wrong but can be defended.
The other two breaks of the guidelines I cannot condone and have not been adequately mitigated because they canât.
1. Guideline, if anybody in your household is suspected of having Covid-19 you must self-isolate. His wife was ill, she could have Covid-19 especially as he stated it was rife in his workplace, he should not have gone back to work.
2. Guideline, journeys for medical and essential shopping only. By the definition he should not have driven to Barnard Castle and especially for the reason given.
My politics are known to anybody who has read my Coronavirus and Brexit posts and will agree he is not my favourite person and could be taken as point scoring which it is not.
I would like to take people to my early posts (now a closed thread) about the lockdown and all the stats I provided outlining why I thought we went into lockdown too late which is now backed up by the Times article on Sunday and how I think that we started to ease lockdown too early and should have followed the Scotland and Wales timelines.
We are at a critical juncture, the press are beginning to associate the Weston Super Mare incident with the VE Day celebrations and people being allowed to drive to beauty spots and the comparison between beaches in England and Wales yesterday was frightening.
We already have a significant number of deaths that could have been avoided, Cummings behaviour even if it leads to only one death, it is one too many and personally could lead to extending the time before what we all really want Theatres reopening and life getting back to ânormal'
There is nothing in my Cummings posts that I would have changed if it was Keir Starmer or even the Queen if they had done what he did and justified it as he did yesterday. This virus doesnât care who you are and will use any host to continue its propagation and it is why any perceived weakness in the guidelines is dangerous and ultimately deadly.
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Post by theatremadness on May 26, 2020 12:46:16 GMT
@posterj the Minister who resigned summarised your point excellently I have constituents who didnât get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didnât 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. Yes, the kid went to hospital but if theyâd been in London heâd have just been taken to hospital there. So thereâs no difference, really. The trip to Barnard Castle was made when Cummings was no longer infectious. Doing a test route doesnât seem weird to me. (Eg If Iâve been ill for a period of time, I always take a walk/short bus trip to see if I think my legs will carry me safely back to work the next day.) (the lack of understanding on here about how small children behave would be hilarious if it wasnât leading to some rather unpleasant comments being made). Are you being serious? Deadly serious? OK then. For the avoidance of doubt, on the few points I highlighted from your post. They took a child, who could potentially have symptoms of covid or has been in close contact with someone they believed could have covid symptoms to a hospital 260+ miles away from where the child actually lived. The exact opposite of what should be done. You know that, no excuses, which is the most confusing thing. But anyway, that's the difference. OK, you may take a short walk or bus trip to see if your legs will carry you. Do you give a piggyback to a family member while you're walking? Or drive the bus full of passengers? I don't think so. That would be incredibly reckless, irresponsible and dangerous. Also, testing your eyesight by driving seems to go against the advice of many medical and driving professionals who said as much yesterday and today. But again, there's no way you don't know that. Seeing a bit of a pattern here. And yes your final point about how small children behave. Totally agree. So Iâm expected to believe there were no stops on a 5 hour car journey? OK then. And on your final point that I haven't quoted about driving and childcare. If Mary Wakefield was not comfortable driving, that leaves Cummings as the only driver. If he became seriously ill that would leave them in the most awful predicament. Not worth it in my eyes, stay put. No childcare in London? Well, they didn't even ask, he said so clear as day in his statement. But if they did ask and there was seriously no single family or friend who could help, they should have gone through the local authorities, as Jenny Harries says in her clip about exceptional circumstances (which Dominic Cummings' most certainly were not) which gets conveniently cut off before she mentions going through local authorities for help, not drive 260 miles and live next to your elderly parents and have shouted conversations with them, which the rest of the country couldn't and largely didn't do. |
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Post by zahidf on May 26, 2020 13:13:23 GMT
This sums it up really
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 13:18:01 GMT
I really don't get how people can defend the claim of going for a drive to test eyesight. If I need to test my sight I do it by looking across the road or down to the end of the garden. If my eyesight's good enough for that then it's good enough to drive; there's not something magical about being behind the wheel that requires a long journey for sight evaluation. The driving test includes a simple reading of a number plate, not an hour of vision testing.
And if it was necessary to drive that far, what if it had turned out his sight wasn't good enough when he was at the most distant part of the journey? How would he get back? If you want to test something in those circumstances you stay close to your starting point.
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Post by londonpostie on May 26, 2020 13:18:15 GMT
I saw an exquisite observation on Twitter: 'the British are finally experiencing what it's like to have your country colonised by the British'. LOL.
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Post by theglenbucklaird on May 26, 2020 13:29:56 GMT
@posterj the Minister who resigned summarised your point excellently I have constituents who didnât get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didnât 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. Iâm not sure what it is about this that people donât get. To do any of the things your constituents wanted to, they would have had to expose others outside the immediate home they were staying in to risk. Cummings kept his family unit together. They did travel, but didnât stop along the way and at their destination remained isolated together. Yes, the kid went to hospital but if theyâd been in London heâd have just been taken to hospital there. So thereâs no difference, really. On other points: The trip to Barnard Castle was made when Cummings was no longer infectious. Doing a test route doesnât seem weird to me. (Eg If Iâve been ill for a period of time, I always take a walk/short bus trip to see if I think my legs will carry me safely back to work the next day.) The people who volunteered to help with childcare in Durham were in an age group less likely to be hard hit by coronavirus, should they contract it. They could also easily isolate away from elderly relatives if needed. Given the choices Cummings had, I canât say I wouldnât have done the same. Those who are so wisely commenting: why didnât his wife drive? Why didnât someone in London do childcare? Maybe his wife doesnât like driving on motorways/busy roads. Maybe she was keeping the child amused on the journey home (the lack of understanding on here about how small children behave would be hilarious if it wasnât leading to some rather unpleasant comments being made). Maybe the person in London (supposedly a family member) who people think could have done childcare was in an at-risk group. Or lived with someone who was. Or couldnât meet the childâs needs. And itâs not like they could bring in a nanny - that would clearly be dangerous for the nannyâs health. Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! Wow |
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Post by Someone in a tree on May 26, 2020 13:30:25 GMT
Boo for Boris. Tonight at 8 pm apparently
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Post by theatremadness on May 26, 2020 13:34:18 GMT
More inconsistencies, as if we needed them
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Post by clair on May 26, 2020 13:35:26 GMT
Hoping this link works, not very tech savvy me! Ok, I've been avoiding the news and all the different things I'd seen were quite confusing but this tweet made it seem much clearer
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 15:28:05 GMT
Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! He lives round the corner from me, and I regularly walked along his road during my daily exercise. There had been no crowds and no harassment until this weekend. I absolutely don't approve of it now, but to suggest that the scenes on TV now were a regular occurrence leading to his decision to leave London is not the case. Would it have to be a regular occurrence? Lots of female MPs reported feeling threatened after being targeted with unpleasant remarks and heckling, not always sustained. (And they were right to speak out about it, by the way. I think itâs wrong, whichever side of the political spectrum youâre on.) |
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Post by kathryn on May 26, 2020 15:29:28 GMT
@jeanhunt you are twisting yourself in knots to try and come up with reasonable justifications for Cummingsâ explanations.
Itâs difficult to do that even taking those explanations at face value, isnât it, given the simplicity of the guidelines that we were all given, and that he helped write.
Give yourself a break: entertain for a moment that the reason the explanations are so ridiculous and hard to justify is that theyâre not true. They were made up after the fact, to fit the irrefutable evidence provided by eye witnesses, with the help of a lawyer (which is why it reads just like a witness statement). It has been designed to manipulate your natural sympathies.
Donât forget, in his wifeâs original account of their experience in the Spectator none of this was mentioned. That account describes them emerging out of isolation into a locked-down London.
We know theyâve already lied about what happened once.
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Post by kathryn on May 26, 2020 15:31:32 GMT
He lives round the corner from me, and I regularly walked along his road during my daily exercise. There had been no crowds and no harassment until this weekend. I absolutely don't approve of it now, but to suggest that the scenes on TV now were a regular occurrence leading to his decision to leave London is not the case. Would it have to be a regular occurrence? Lots of female MPs reported feeling threatened after being targeted with unpleasant remarks and heckling, not always sustained. (And they were right to speak out about it, by the way. I think itâs wrong, whichever side of the political spectrum youâre on.) It would need to have happened once to be a genuine reason. It quite obviously hadnât - if anyone had shown up at his house they would have been immediately arrested for breaking lockdown. |
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 15:34:50 GMT
Iâm not sure what it is about this that people donât get. To do any of the things your constituents wanted to, they would have had to expose others outside the immediate home they were staying in to risk. Cummings kept his family unit together. They did travel, but didnât stop along the way and at their destination remained isolated together. Yes, the kid went to hospital but if theyâd been in London heâd have just been taken to hospital there. So thereâs no difference, really. On other points: The trip to Barnard Castle was made when Cummings was no longer infectious. Doing a test route doesnât seem weird to me. (Eg If Iâve been ill for a period of time, I always take a walk/short bus trip to see if I think my legs will carry me safely back to work the next day.) The people who volunteered to help with childcare in Durham were in an age group less likely to be hard hit by coronavirus, should they contract it. They could also easily isolate away from elderly relatives if needed. Given the choices Cummings had, I canât say I wouldnât have done the same. Those who are so wisely commenting: why didnât his wife drive? Why didnât someone in London do childcare? Maybe his wife doesnât like driving on motorways/busy roads. Maybe she was keeping the child amused on the journey home (the lack of understanding on here about how small children behave would be hilarious if it wasnât leading to some rather unpleasant comments being made). Maybe the person in London (supposedly a family member) who people think could have done childcare was in an at-risk group. Or lived with someone who was. Or couldnât meet the childâs needs. And itâs not like they could bring in a nanny - that would clearly be dangerous for the nannyâs health. Very interesting nobody here is commenting on the fact people were outside Cummingsâ house harassing him (even prior to this), which played into his decision to leave London! That's exactly why people are angry. He knowingly took the virus to Durham and spread it to a regional hospital much less prepared to deal with it than one in Central London. âPotentially spreadâ it, not âspreadâ it. I should think most medics faced with that child that night, and knowing mum had similar symptoms a few days previously but was now OK, would assume the pair of them had a stomach virus, and just keep him in for observation. Which, from the timeline, looks like exactly what happened. And letâs keep some sense of proportion here - all hospitals are set up to handle COVID! |
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