The Politics Thread 2020

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

Cummings could always report his treatment by the press to his local MP if he feels that strongly about it.

Oh, wait. His local MP is Jeremy Corbyn who had to put up with a national media smear campaign for pretty much the entire duration of his Labour party leadership.

[jono]

I just can’t get excited about this story or even the Scottish medical officer who went to her weekend home. The guidelines could never cover every eventuality. For me, as long as others were not exposed to extreme risk or local resources stretched by selfish behaviour, and common sense was deployed then it’s a none the event. Looking at packed beaches  on the south coast on the other hand ?

The same voices ready to erect the gallows for DC would be bemoaning callousness towards small children if the perpetrator wore a different rosette 

[nottingram]

14 minutes ago, jono said:

I just can’t get excited about this story or even the Scottish medical officer who went to her weekend home. The guidelines could never cover every eventuality. For me, as long as others were not exposed to extreme risk or local resources stretched by selfish behaviour, and common sense was deployed then it’s a none the event. Looking at packed beaches  on the south coast on the other hand ?

The same voices ready to erect the gallows for DC would be bemoaning callousness towards small children if the perpetrator wore a different rosette 

Was the whole point of his visit not that he suspected his wife had CV and that he would get it as well?

I would suggest that taking any suspected case of CV from the epicentre in London to an area of the country which had very few cases, and his wife and son going into a hospital while up there, would exactly define the bolder bit, and for me is unforgivable regardless of any rosette colour.

Of course I may have misunderstood, and no one displayed any such symptoms. But then I would be even less sure what the purpose of any visit was.

[A Ram for All Seasons]

2 hours ago, King Kevin said:

Think you're wrong here ,there is so much distrust within the leave vote with factions trying to overturn democracy that some will back him even if he's in the wrong. Which he is.

 

People do not mistrust democracy, but they do have every right to hold the government that the democratic process has landed the country with. The vote may have been lost, but the arguments are just as valid as before and nobody has a democratic obligation to suck it up.

[A Ram for All Seasons]

41 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

Cummings could always report his treatment by the press to his local MP if he feels that strongly about it.

Cummings missus has already been reported to the Press Council for the piece she wrote for the Spectator about the Cummings family's experience with Coronavirus which omitted some important details (like Durham).

Apparently she once won a journalism prize for a report about driving a car across Texas. London to Durham would have been a doddle for her.

[May Contain Nuts]

48 minutes ago, jono said:

I just can’t get excited about this story or even the Scottish medical officer who went to her weekend home. The guidelines could never cover every eventuality. For me, as long as others were not exposed to extreme risk or local resources stretched by selfish behaviour, and common sense was deployed then it’s a none event.

What he did is only a small part of the issue though. "What he did" could have been dealt with in a couple of days with quick action / response from the government. As we've seen in the past 3-4 years though, this government don't do much of anything quickly or decisively (unless it's to save one of their friends / donors paying out an extra £40m!)

A vast number of people would have been happy for him to show some contrition (even if blindingly false), admit to some specific wrongdoing (not just "I have made mistakes, we've all made mistakes") and make a brief apology, regardless of whether he meant it or not. Yes there would still be some people refusing to let it go but as a whole people would have moved on to something else.

...but no. that's not good enough.

Instead of doing what almost anyone else would do in that situation we get 3, 4 days of buffering whilst they work out a plan and come up with a story for Cummings to tell the world, all the while condemning the media reports as 'false reporting' (again, without ever stating what specifically is fake and what isn't) in the most hypocritical fashion possible when the story they've invented for Cummings could at best be described as cockamamie.

However bad the media is (and they are), I think it's painting them as the enemy and liars of the piece that's lead to the story rumbling on and on. The whole remain/leave angle is only an addition to the story, not the story itself or the reason it's still an ongoing topic of discussion.

I really couldn't give a stuff what Dominic Cummings and his family actually did at this point, but trying to take everyone for a fool afterwards has brought more shame on him, and Boris Johnson, than a 260 mile trip to County Durham ever could.

[BriggRam]

[Comrade 86]

3 hours ago, maxjam said:

This tbh.

My opinion was that DC should have done the right thing and stood down, alternatively BJ could have sidelined him for a bit then bought him back in 12 months once everything had died down.  IMO it has now become far wider than simply breaking lockdown rules with remainers scenting blood and using it as their chance to destabilize the process and leavers desperately trying to hang onto their man.  Categorically denying there maybe a connection is a little bit naive or disingenuous imo.

And categorically suggesting that there is a connection, even more so. Desperate in fact.

[Eddie]

5 minutes ago, 86 Schmokes & a Pancake said:

And categorically suggesting that there is a connection, even more so. Desperate in fact.

No smoke without fire. Now where's my petrol can? Got a few mobile network towers to torch - then, I'm going to check whether aviation fuel burns hot enough to collapse steel-reinforced concrete, and after my naan dough has proved, I'm going to drink some bleach for good measure.

You can never be too sure.

[AndyinLiverpool]

57 minutes ago, BriggRam said:

And? How does the detract from Cummings?

just because other people have done stuff they shouldn’t have, we just accept the person making the rules doing what he pleases? It’s not a very good argument    

 

[GboroRam]

43 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Post away, you are the balanced arbiter on here who knows the difference between right and wrong. Suspect that a similar image of Allah may not have stayed up for 40 minutes. @G STAR RAM where are you?

If it offends, I apologise and will remove it. 

[FindernRam]

39 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

And? How does the detract from Cummings?

just because other people have done stuff they shouldn’t have, we just accept the person making the rules doing what he pleases? It’s not a very good argument    

 

So you don't think they should resign as MPs?

[BriggRam]

51 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

And? How does the detract from Cummings?

just because other people have done stuff they shouldn’t have, we just accept the person making the rules doing what he pleases? It’s not a very good argument    

 

just pointed out other MP's have broke the rules and not got a minicule of attention Cummings has.........leftist media vultures, picking and choosing its victims

[rynny]

2 minutes ago, BriggRam said:

just pointed out other MP's have broke the rules and not got a minicule of attention Cummings has.........leftist media vultures, picking and choosing its victims

The 2 main points of this whataboutery are;

Did any of them, or their families at home, have symptoms of covid 19 when breaking lockdown?

Have any of them denied what they did was wrong?

If so then they are equally as bad as Cummings, if not they aren't quite up there with him, but still in the wrong, just like every other person who has broken the lockdown. However it doesn't take away from what Cummings has done. 

And totally agree with @Coconut, if there had been some recognition from Cummings, Johnson, et al about how Cummings was in the wrong the majority would have moved on by now. 

[Norman]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

No smoke without fire. Now where's my petrol can? Got a few mobile network towers to torch - then, I'm going to check whether aviation fuel burns hot enough to collapse steel-reinforced concrete, and after my naan dough has proved, I'm going to drink some bleach for good measure.

You can never be too sure.

So you're Jeremy Corbyn's brother. 

No wonder you're so flouncy over answering who you voted for. You don't want your brother to know you didn't vote for him. 

[Norman]

1 minute ago, rynny said:

The 2 main points of this whataboutery are;

Did any of them, or their families at home, have symptoms of covid 19 when breaking lockdown?

Have any of them denied what they did was wrong?

If so then they are equally as bad as Cummings, if not they aren't quite up there with him, but still in the wrong, just like every other person who has broken the lockdown. However it doesn't take away from what Cummings has done. 

And totally agree with @Coconut, if there had been some recognition from Cummings, Johnson, et al about how Cummings was in the wrong the majority would have moved on by now. 

You ask 2 questions. But you don't know the answers. 

Weird. You'd have thought the media and some of their own party would have gone in on them by now. 

[BriggRam]

3 minutes ago, rynny said:

The 2 main points of this whataboutery are;

Did any of them, or their families at home, have symptoms of covid 19 when breaking lockdown?

Have any of them denied what they did was wrong?

If so then they are equally as bad as Cummings, if not they aren't quite up there with him, but still in the wrong, just like every other person who has broken the lockdown. However it doesn't take away from what Cummings has done. 

And totally agree with @Coconut, if there had been some recognition from Cummings, Johnson, et al about how Cummings was in the wrong the majority would have moved on by now. 

totally agree he's screwed up and his excuses aren't good......but it is fair to say the clowns i have highlighted have not had the same scrutiny, despite being at larger gatherings of people where someone may have had the virus

[TuffLuff]

13 minutes ago, BriggRam said:

just pointed out other MP's have broke the rules and not got a minicule of attention Cummings has.........leftist media vultures, picking and choosing its victims

I feel this is something you should be able to think about independent of other posters on this forum, balance up the reasons why and maybe think whether it’s still worth posting.

[maxjam]

The Police investigation into Dominic Cummings various jaunts has ended and they conclude that there 'might' have been a breach of the lockdown rules but consider it to be 'minor' as there was no apparent breach of social distancing rules during the visit. 

The force said it had "no intention to take retrospective action in respect of the Barnard Castle incident"  since this would amount to "treating Mr Cummings differently from other members of the public."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52835982?at_medium=custom7&at_custom3=%40BBCBreaking&at_custom4=53D18C92-A0DE-11EA-B0CB-E0223A982C1E&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom1=[post+type]&at_campaign=64

Thats that then ?

[Norman]

1 minute ago, BriggRam said:

totally agree he's screwed up and his excuses aren't good......but it is fair to say the clowns i have highlighted have not had the same scrutiny, despite being at larger gatherings of people where someone may have had the virus

Don't point out hypocrisy on here. Not many like it.