Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Michael W]

Willingly trashing your credibility for some trampy c**t advisor is quite something.

He's a fucking advisor FFS, they're as disposable a thing you'll find in politics. 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

It's laid bare now just how vital Cummings is to the Tory project.

They're willing to go live on TV and make themselves look like fools to protect him, in the Trump-like belief that at least 50% of the electorate buys into their ideology and will follow the cult regardless. 

[welshbairn]

25 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Dan Hodges. His Twitter bio describes him as a 'Tory Mingler'

Noticed his pinned tweet, bet he removes it sharpish.

 

[Granny Danger]

Just now, Bob Mahelp said:

It's laid bare now just how vital Cummings is to the Tory project.

They're willing to go live on TV and make themselves look like fools to protect him, in the Trump-like belief that at least 50% of the electorate buys into their ideology and will follow the cult regardless. 

Sorry for being pedantic, but because of FPTP they don’t need anything like 50% of the electorate.

[Gaz]

3 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

They're willing to go live on TV and make themselves look like fools to protect him, in the Trump-like belief that at least 50% of the electorate buys into their ideology and will follow the cult regardless. 

Well, to be fair, they're right.

Politics has become so tribal in the past five years that people don't care if they're right, as long as they're winning.

[peasy23]

I'd be getting back on to the Durham cops and asking why the Government are saying they are lying

The thing is, from everything I have read, at no point did the police say they had spoke to Cummings directly. Their statement specifically mentioned that they had spoke to the owners of the house he was staying in, which I assume was his patents. More twisting of the facts by the Tory c***s.

[H Wragg]

The thing is, from everything I have read, at no point did the police say they had spoke to Cummings directly. Their statement specifically mentioned that they had spoke to the owners of the house he was staying in, which I assume was his patents. More twisting of the facts by the Tory c***s.

The question asked was whether the polis had spoken to any of his family.

[peasy23]

The question asked was whether the polis had spoken to any of his family.

I wasn't watching, but it might technically be true that they didn't speak to any of his family. As mentioned, the police said they spoke to the house owners. Edited to add the tweet from Kuntsberg, which is as good as getting it from Cummings himself.

 

 

 

 

[Mr Tourette]

Was away to post the exact same question. He is having a fucking mare

The other journalist lassie from Guardian/Observer must have been secretly pissing herself listening to him spluttering shite

“The worlds gone MAD! MADNESS!!!”

We need more of these Mail types on imh. Superb entertainment

[welshbairn]

5 minutes ago, peasy23 said:

10 minutes ago, H Wragg said:

The question asked was whether the polis had spoken to any of his family.

I wasn't watching, but it might technically be true that they didn't speak to any of his family. As mentioned, the police said they spoke to the house owners.

Who were his parents. It's a bit desperate if they're claiming that only his wife and son count. Seems they're going full Trump mode, "No I didn't, never said that, never happened, fake news."

Edited May 23, 2020 by welshbairn

[Sergeant Wilson]

55 minutes ago, Carl Cort's Hamstring said:

If I was a newspaper editor I'd be getting my hacks to check every petrol station and services between London and Durham to see if they stopped there.

The kid will have done pee pee in a bottle and I can't see DC and his missus stopping for a couple of steak bakes. Worth trying I suppose though.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Sergeant Wilson

[btb]

FFS that's harsh - his wife's one of the editorial team at The Spectator...

2 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

ruh-roh

 

 

[Granny Danger]

Looks like there’s a lot of questions outstanding, including:

whose account of events is correct, Cummings or his wife?

who is lying, Cummings or the police?

who was looking after their kid?

when did Johnson know and did he approve?

did they have any contact with anyone else during the trip?

why would Cummings and his wife not like steak bakes?

This is not going away any time soon.

[welshbairn]

8 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

The kid will have done pee pee in a bottle and I can't see DC and his missus stopping for a couple of steak bakes. Worth trying I suppose though.

Not sure how far you can go without filling up with a Landrover Discovery, doubt if I could make 270 with my wee Nissan.

[East Calder Lion]

34 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Willingly trashing your credibility for some trampy c**t advisor is quite something.

He's a fucking advisor FFS, they're as disposable a thing you'll find in politics. 

Maybe the little weasel knows where all the skeletons are buried.

[welshbairn]

11 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

ruh-roh

 

First word from anyone associated with the Spectator I think. Tick Tock for Dom.

Quote

Most aspects of this present emergency are complex and resist easy solutions. Only a handful are elementary but one of these, and quite obviously so, is the Dominic Cummings affair. He must go and he must go now. There is no alternative, no other way out, no means by which this ship can be saved. The only question is the number of casualties Cummings will take with him.

Judged by the cabinet’s performance on social media this weekend, the answer to that question is also simple: all of them. It cannot be stressed too often that the government’s authority during this crisis is moral much more than it is legal. The lockdown measures were presented as a great national collective endeavour and they were accepted by the public on those terms too. Now it seems they were optional so long as, that is, you have the correct connections.

Advisors are, by definition, disposable. When they become the story, you cut them loose. That is the rule and it exists for a very good reason. Otherwise, attention soon shifts from the advisor to their masters. Right now, the government appears to believe Cummings is indispensable and, consequently, more important than the coherence and credibility of the government’s own messaging. That is quite a conclusion to reach and one unlikely to be shared by the general public.

This government now suffers from a credibility gap and the problem with such things is that, once opened and apparent, these gaps never close. The longer Cummings remains in post, the surer it is that the government will become, at best, a laughing stock.

It doesn’t even matter if what he did was appropriate or sensible or a reasonable means by which an awkward or complicated situation might best be managed. All that could be true and it wouldn’t change a thing. Perception is sometimes more important and here the perception is that there is one set of rules for government insiders and another, quite different, set of rules for everyone else. That is not just the perception, either, for it appears to be the reality too and will remain so, and be understood as such, for as long as Dominic Cummings remains in post. You may sympathise with his predicament – an unwell wife, a small child – all you like and it doesn’t change a thing.

Cabinet minister, mysteriously, are setting fire to their own credibility and authority in defending Cummings. There are millions of people across the country who have made considerable sacrifices, borne significant hardship, during this lockdown. They have done so for the greater good, recognising that they must do their little bit as part of a much greater endeavour. Weddings have been postponed; funerals have been left unattended; families have been separated. Little of this experience has been easy and much of it has been hard.

It is baffling that the government appears unable to see the damage this story will do to its already rocky reputation. Cummings’s judgement is one thing – and in the grander scheme of things, neither here nor there – but the longer this story rumbles on so the surer it is that attention will switch to the man who hired him. The point of a human shield is that you must be prepared to lose them if that proves necessary and this is something even Boris Johnson must be capable of grasping. It is his judgement that is now the issue.

The suspicion remains that somewhere, deep in their hearts, the cabinet’s collective reaction to this scandal – for such it is – is predicated on a still darker appreciation of an unwelcome political reality. Namely that the Prime Minister, whatever his other talents, is not actually up to the job of running the country in a moment such as this. I suspect they know this too and this leads them to a situation in which they decline to concede anything for fear that a single concession might topple the entire rickety edifice.

Perhaps I am mistaken about that but I can see no other logical explanation for the manner in which the government has reacted to this story. There is an old rule in crisis management stating that you should always do quickly what you will be forced to do eventually anyway. That means sacking Cummings now and it is astonishing that this appears beyond Downing Street.

You cannot – and again, this is elementary – run this crisis on a 'do as I say, not as I do' basis. And yet that is what the country is now expected to swallow. It is madness and a blunder of career-defining, perhaps even career-ruining, proportions.

A joke, then, albeit not an especially amusing one. Surely someone in Downing Street can appreciate this? This is a shipwreck and all the smart people who say this will blow over or fail to 'cut through' with the public are, I think, sorely mistaken. This is not a difficult story to understand, which is why it is so very powerful.

Again, and above all, this is a moral matter not a legal one and, by virtue of that, a much bigger and more profound affair. The Prime Minister has a simple choice: cut Dominic Cummings loose or be dragged down with him. This ought to be a pretty easy decision.

WRITTEN BY
Alex Massie
Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.

 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

No surprise that wanks like Guido are backing him still.

[Paco]

I really don’t see much support from Cummings out there, even from sources you’d expect. Only the proper lunatics are backing him.

 

I’m absolutely furious about the government response, far more than the act itself, and it seems most people are too. People have been watching their parents funerals on fucking Zoom and kids have died and been buried alone while Cummings can nip up to his parents while he’s actually infected! Just on the off chance he needs his kid looked after. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.

 

This isn’t a ‘typical politicians’ style hypocrisy, this is our actual cabinet choosing to trash the entire fucking lockdown for an advisor. They know they’re lying, and not in a ‘this salary cap is actually a good thing’ or ‘this stat has actually got better so we’re doing well with healthcare’ style way. This is now politicians prioritising an advisor over - literally- everyone else in the country.

 

Our Health Secretary says it’s fine, our Attorney General says it’s fine. That’s completely alarming to me when perfectly healthy people have been fined for sitting in the park. Where do you end with that logic, if it’s one of your own?

 

This should now be much bigger than Cummings resigning.

 

[Todd_is_God]

Despite easing lockdown measures almost 1 month ago, Germany continues to see cases continue to drop.

This should help alleviate fears that once Scotland starts lifting restrictions cases will immediately shoot up.

It would be nice if our news outlets used this opportunity to reassure the public, but for some reason this isn't really happening

https://interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/karte-sars-cov-2-in-deutschland-landkreise/

[Empty It]

Wow.
In the middle of the biggest crisis since the 2nd world war, we just watched the Tory government lie and make up policy on the hoof.....all to protect the organ grinder who controls the monkey.
This is predictable.

FTFY