The Politics Thread 2020

[i-Ram]

33 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

There was pretty widely reported footage of him being asked by a reporter to admit that it doesn't look good and he replied "who cares whether it looks good" (or words to that effect).

Oh, I knew I hadn’t seen it in the Littlehampton Gazette.

 

[Ramarena]

15 hours ago, jimmyp said:

Your right his wife was showing symptoms, he however wasn’t, I got the impression from reading your post that said “He’s not a minister but I’m betting he could have had transport arranged to drive him up there and back if it was so important instead of driving up whilst sick!” Was you implying that he was sick whilst undertaking the original journey. It came across that way.

With the eyesight test statement now that you have explained further what you mean I understand what you were trying to say / imply. However on first reading I felt it misleading to use the term eyesight test, I’m not sure you can class the so called test drive as an eyesight test. 

I’m not questioning your opinion merely your use of words.

How does it demean my point of view? 

At least one of them would have been sick in the car whilst driving up, maybe it wasn’t worded specifically enough.

However the eyesight test comment was pretty obvious and needed no further explanation.

Semantics can be fun but only when used appropriately!

[Eddie]

Just think how much better things might have been if the government had worked anything like as hard to preserve lives within the NHS and care homes in comparison to the effort they are making to preserve the reputation of one advisor.

[Ramarena]

7 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

There was an interesting tweet about how his sister(in-law?) who lives in Durham has just been made a director(?) of Idox - the company that's involved in the trace/track app. The signing date matched his visit(s)...

Yes I was looking at this recently as she was appointed in April, but on an admittedly brief search I actually couldn’t find any definitive evidence that she’s his sister.

Is it Alice Cummings you are talking about?

The meat of that story is that IDOX were given a government contract for changing the electoral register in the election and it was rushed through pre-election without going to tender!

 

[Van der MoodHoover]

Quite apart from DomCum, fellow peers in the legal profession are now rounding on the Head of Photocopying/Attorney General Suella Braverman for defending his action saying that by putting party defence above impartial scrutiny of the law, her position is now untenable.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/25/attorney-general-faces-calls-to-resign-defends-dominic-cummings-suella-braverman

Yes, it is the Guardian and so may be dismissed by some just for that fact alone, but it is quoting the views of lawyers, rather than its own editorial team.

 

 

[SSD]

Amazing what " I am sorry" can do to a person in the public eye. Could have killed this story off a week ago. Instead the government decide to "not show weakness" and tie themselves in knots. Sometimes it is easier to admit being wrong. I respect people who do that rather than justify their actions in a really poor manner.

[RoyMac5]

51 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

You conveniently missed the jobs for the boys part but hay ho.

Because you didn't say that - you said the bit in ' marks ie quote marks. Hay ho.

[Norman]

16 minutes ago, SouthStandDan said:

Amazing what " I am sorry" can do to a person in the public eye. Could have killed this story off a week ago. Instead the government decide to "not show weakness" and tie themselves in knots. Sometimes it is easier to admit being wrong. I respect people who do that rather than justify their actions in a really poor manner.

Not sure that hearing hollow words makes a difference. I'd rather hear what he actually is thinking. Which he seems to have said. Makes for a better judgment. 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

2 hours ago, i-Ram said:

I remain unsure of whether he should go, but unless something comes out that contradicts his “story” I think just about on balance he should stay. I guess if l was a Remainer I would see it differently because I think much of the guff going on now links back to Brexit rather than COVID. 

The thing is, the story just doesn't seem at all believable. Who honestly would drive a 60-mile-round trip to test if their eyesight was working? And how can he honestly believe that sitting by a river for 15 minutes and playing in the woods after a toilet stop is part of the 'doing what was necessary to take care of my child' defence?

I'm always inclined to believe people when they claim they're being sincere, to the point of being let down in the past, but I honestly can't buy this.

[1967Ram]

I have no idea why Cummings would lie like this. He must, sorry should, have known he would get caught out.

Doubt has been cast on Dominic Cummings’ claim he warned of the threat of coronavirus “last year” after the discovery of a recent edit on the Downing Street adviser’s blog.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dominic-cummings-coronavirus-blog-boris-johnson-downing-street-a9532996.html

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/26/dominic-cummings-faces-questions-over-claim-he-warned-last-year-of-virus-threat

I can only presume that, like a lot of highly intelligent people, he has very little common sense.

[Ramarena]

9 hours ago, Angry Ram said:

Been watching this whole Cummings thing over the last couple of days and I am not sure where I sit on this.

1. If this was Corbyn or Abbot, would I have had a different view. If I answer myself honestly the answer would probably be yes, so I am a hypocrite and needed to step back and look at the actual event.

2. Was he right, absolutely not and should face the consequences.. 

3. The spin is embarrassing, just fess up and take it.

4. Was it that bigger crime? Probably not and I might have done the same.

5. I grow to despise the press more and more each day. What they are doing is unacceptable and should be stopped.

6. I liked that Cummings was tearing up the rule book with the Civil Service, yet in so many ways, I just looked at him and thought WTF is that. Slovenly, does that really matter? Strangely, yes it does. Very unangry view that.

So I am still torn, is he that important to government? If yes, that’s a worry. Should we get rid of someone that important just for this? Probably but which is the bigger picture. What has politics become? A bloody mess for sure. Do I still support this government? Yes but that has taken a knock.

What I can’t forgive is even if technically he may have had a point, morally he was wrong. There would have been better options I am sure. If you accept the role, you accept the responsibility as well. Sorry mate as much as I liked what you were trying to do, you gotta go IMO.

Rarely agree with you but this is a fair post.

What I don’t understand is why after starting down the “ it was in interests of the child route”,  didn’t he just say “sorry I broke the rules but I did it in the interests of my child. The trip to Barnard Castle was an error of judgement”

At least that’s a defendable position instead of the childish rooster and bull stories. 

The fact that these guys are prepared to stand behind that shows them for what they are!

Thats all before we get onto his wife’s article completely contradicting his tale!

[Van der MoodHoover]

47 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

The thing is, the story just doesn't seem at all believable. Who honestly would drive a 60-mile-round trip to test if their eyesight was working? And how can he honestly believe that sitting by a river for 15 minutes and playing in the woods after a toilet stop is part of the 'doing what was necessary to take care of my child' defence?

I'm always inclined to believe people when they claim they're being sincere, to the point of being let down in the past, but I honestly can't buy this.

You sure you're a lawyer.....?

 

?

[Rev]

58 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

The thing is, the story just doesn't seem at all believable. Who honestly would drive a 60-mile-round trip to test if their eyesight was working? And how can he honestly believe that sitting by a river for 15 minutes and playing in the woods after a toilet stop is part of the 'doing what was necessary to take care of my child' defence?

I'm always inclined to believe people when they claim they're being sincere, to the point of being let down in the past, but I honestly can't buy this.

What if he washed his eyes in the river, to better see?

[i-Ram]

1 hour ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

The thing is, the story just doesn't seem at all believable. Who honestly would drive a 60-mile-round trip to test if their eyesight was working? And how can he honestly believe that sitting by a river for 15 minutes and playing in the woods after a toilet stop is part of the 'doing what was necessary to take care of my child' defence?

I'm always inclined to believe people when they claim they're being sincere, to the point of being let down in the past, but I honestly can't buy this.

No worries buddy, it is perfectly fine to form your own judgment and your instincts on this could be correct. I really haven’t been following it sufficiently to want to do anything other than be a waverer on this subject.

[Boycie]

Well if he’s added to his blog to try and make himself look like the “I told you so” then he’s a bigger plum than I thought.

[TuffLuff]

Gave this a listen earlier and I think it’s worth a share https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/today-in-focus/id1440133626?i=1000475775828

Interview with their reporter who helped break the story. It gave me a few different perspectives on it all as it’s not an all out attack. Ill write them out without going into much detail

1) why didn’t Cummings double down that he left London as a security issue? I’m not saying it’s a good excuse (if he was worried people knew where he lived I’m sure the govt could prepare lodgings whilst they quarantined?), but I think it would have been seen as a more understandable line. The through line ended up being about the press which doesn’t make sense

2) The govt knew for six weeks about the allegation, my guess had been they hadn’t responded because they had something up their sleeve (a resignation and then carrying on working for the govt freelance so to speak) but that doesn’t seem the case. They kept quiet because they didn’t see it as a big story. They discuss that it’s a massive oversight from Cummings who feels his key successes (brexit and the Johnson election win) are because he understands the public better than the press do.

3) I don’t think as a whole, his story is overly that bad if you look at it as a human rather than a person of significance (who wrote the guidelines!). Especially in the eye of joe public as everyone, including on this thread, ums and ahhs about what they have done throughout lockdown. What I think the public don’t like is deception. The eye test, his wife’s account not mentioning it, adding parts to his blog to say he warned of a pandemic. They are the actions of people who are trying to cover up and everyone can sense stuff like that from a mile off.

4) This means that the public have lost faith in the govt and that’s really hard to get back. Fortunately for them, there is time to do that long term although this won’t be forgotten easily. The big problem they now have is that if they can’t predict how the public reacts which means they can’t control the narrative of how the news is portrayed (even in the mail) and yesterday showed, he didn’t know how to react and tried to make the press into the enemy. The problem here isn’t the press, it’s that the press aren’t doing what the govt want.

[Boycie]

20 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

Gave this a listen earlier and I think it’s worth a share https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/today-in-focus/id1440133626?i=1000475775828

Interview with their reporter who helped break the story. It gave me a few different perspectives on it all as it’s not an all out attack. Ill write them out without going into much detail

1) why didn’t Cummings double down that he left London as a security issue? I’m not saying it’s a good excuse (if he was worried people knew where he lived I’m sure the govt could prepare lodgings whilst they quarantined?), but I think it would have been seen as a more understandable line. The through line ended up being about the press which doesn’t make sense

2) The govt knew for six weeks about the allegation, my guess had been they hadn’t responded because they had something up their sleeve (a resignation and then carrying on working for the govt freelance so to speak) but that doesn’t seem the case. They kept quiet because they didn’t see it as a big story. They discuss that it’s a massive oversight from Cummings who feels his key successes (brexit and the Johnson election win) are because he understands the public better than the press do.

3) I don’t think as a whole, his story is overly that bad if you look at it as a human rather than a person of significance (who wrote the guidelines!). Especially in the eye of joe public as everyone, including on this thread, ums and ahhs about what they have done throughout lockdown. What I think the public don’t like is deception. The eye test, his wife’s account not mentioning it, adding parts to his blog to say he warned of a pandemic. They are the actions of people who are trying to cover up and everyone can sense stuff like that from a mile off.

4) This means that the public have lost faith in the govt and that’s really hard to get back. Fortunately for them, there is time to do that long term although this won’t be forgotten easily. The big problem they now have is that if they can’t predict how the public reacts which means they can’t control the narrative of how the news is portrayed (even in the mail) and yesterday showed, he didn’t know how to react and tried to make the press into the enemy. The problem here isn’t the press, it’s that the press aren’t doing what the govt want.

Your best ever post. ??

[bigbadbob]

10 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

What do you mean' hope not'? His sister is a director at the company (Idox) chosen for the Govt's chosen track/trace app! Who lives in Durham... 

How do you know she's his sister?

[Rev]

1 minute ago, bigbadbob said:

How do you know she's his sister?

He knows his Cummings from his goings?

[bigbadbob]

10 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

What do you mean' hope not'? His sister is a director at the company (Idox) chosen for the Govt's chosen track/trace app! Who lives in Durham... 

What's so funny? Have i missed something