Florentine_Pogen

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/26/inconsistencies-between-cummings-lockdown-story-and-his-wifes Inconsistencies between Cummings’ lockdown story and his wife’s On Monday, Dominic Cummings finally gave an account of his trip to Durham during lockdown – more than a month after his wife, Mary Wakefield, wrote about their experiences of lockdown for the Spectator magazine. The two versions are not entirely consistent. An analysis of their stories, together with eyewitness accounts, throws up questions and peculiarities that are yet to be resolved. Friday 27 March By Cummings’ account, his wife fell ill during the day, prompting him to rush home from No 10 to take care of her. He then returned to the office, despite having spent time with someone he strongly suspected to have coronavirus. They drove to Durham that evening, and he developed symptoms himself overnight. But in Wakefield’s article, she wrote: “That evening as I lay on the sofa, a happy thought occurred to me: if this was the virus, then my husband, who works 16-hour days as a rule, would have to come home.” By her husband’s recollection, he had already been home. And why did Cummings return to the office after spending time with his symptomatic wife? 2/3 April Wakefield wrote that “day six is a turning point”, when her husband was having such difficulty breathing that she feared he should be in hospital. Day six of her account would appear to be Thursday 2 April. Yet according to Cummings, the following day he was well enough to drive to hospital to pick up their son, who had been taken ill the night before. Sunday 12 April In Wakefield’s account of the family’s time in quarantine, she described a range of unusual and varying symptoms that people with coronavirus may experience. She referred to her own headaches, others’ “numbness in their fingertips”, and Cummings’ “spasms”. No mention, though, of problems with her husband’s eyesight. Yet this was the reason Cummings gave for taking a “test drive” to Barnard Castle, a town almost 30 miles away, before returning to London. He said he had taken his wife and son “for a short drive” on Easter Sunday – Wakefield’s birthday – “to see if I could drive safely”. Why did the couple conclude that the best way to test his eyesight was to take a trip that would have involved using a busy A-road? Cummings also said the family went to the “outskirts” of Barnard Castle. But the location where they were seen, next to the River Tees between Ullathorne Rise and Gill Lane, is on the far side of the town from the Cummings family property, and is close to a considerable number of homes. Why did they end up here on a drive designed simply to test whether it was safe for him to take the wheel?

'Short Straw Handcock'...........Raab and Patel high-fiving in the Cabinet Office.

Surely the journos will be digging away at this just now. Sounds a bit whiffy but presumably with the UK now being outwith OJEU tendering standards, the whole process becomes more opaque.

What does annual leave have to do with it ? We're in the middle of a pandemic. Pretty sure everyone is looking forward to lockdown being relaxed but not at the risk of ruining all the sacrifices that folk have already made.

Libby Brooks The Scottish conservative leader, Jackson Carlaw, has finally called for Dominic Cummings to resign, after coming under intense pressure while a number of his own MSPs expressed their strong support for their colleague Douglas Ross, who resigned as a UK government minister earlier today in protest at the Cummings row. After an earlier equivocal statement, in which he said that “this is a difficult situation for many, and people will arrive at different judgments,” Carlaw told STV this afternoon: "It is absolutely a matter for the prime minister himself who serves him and for how long they serve but given the furore, given the distraction we are now in, given the distraction to the prime minister onto this issue if I were Mr Cummings I would be considering my position." Carlaw being 100% unequivocal there........

Mr. Gove has eloquently allayed any fears I had that an unelected govt. advisor might have taken reckless decisions, ignored strict govt. instructions and put others at risk.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/26/dominic-cummings-lockdown-rules-coronavirus During his rose garden press conference, Dominic Cummings was asked if his trip to Durham had undermined government public health messaging. I hope not, he replied. Later, Boris Johnson was asked the same question. His response was more definitive: no one in No 10 has undermined the messaging. I hope they are right. For this matters. If people stop listening to what the government asks them to do and if they stop adhering to coronavirus measures then the number of infections will rise and more people will die. But I cannot be as certain or as optimistic as the prime minister and his adviser. All that we know about adherence (knowledge that behavioural scientists have repeatedly stressed to the government during the pandemic) suggests that damage has been done. First, for all the complexities of Cummings’ story, the bottom line is very simple. While millions of people up and down the land faced agonising personal circumstances and decided to stick with lockdown, Cummings did not. He went to Durham at the very time his government was insisting “stay at home, don’t travel”. He went to a beauty spot at the very time his government was insisting we avoid them. And nothing has happened to him. Instead, his actions have been endorsed. At the very least, that gives the appearance of “one rule for them, another for us” (possibly the best way of corroding trust in authority and adherence to the rules). And Cummings more than anyone else understands the importance of appearance in politics. Second, the one thing that has carried us through the pandemic so far has been an emergent sense of community. This “we” feeling has been critical in getting people to adhere to the restrictions, even when they personally were not at risk. It has been critical to all the volunteering and neighbourhood support that has helped us through hardship. It is the most valuable asset we have in a crisis. But the most notable thing about Cummings’ rose garden performance was that “we” was nowhere to be found. It was all about “I”. His explanation was entirely about his judgments as an individual, his decisions, his personal concerns. At no point was there any thought to the impact of his actions on others. Still worse, in his defence of Cummings on Sunday, the prime minister seemed to endorse the idea that, when the going gets tough, it is fine to rely on your own judgments – and fine to follow your individual “instincts”. In effect, Johnson’s defence of Cummings turned an issue of communal responsibility into an issue of individual preference. Had everyone done that – had we all put so much energy into thinking about loopholes that served our personal circumstances rather than thinking about the impact of our actions on others – then lockdown would not have worked, the infection would still be raging and the NHS would have been overwhelmed. As we come out of lockdown these issues become, if anything, even more important. It isn’t that the infection has gone away. Rather we are now in a position, due to past sacrifices by the many, to use more targeted strategies against coronavirus. But these are dependent on us all maintaining physical distancing, increasing hygiene standards, revealing our contacts if infected and observing quarantine if contacted. All of these measures are personally inconvenient. Often it will be easier to ignore them. They will only work if we continue to act together and for each other. I hope this will happen. I hope people will continue to demonstrate the remarkable solidarity they have shown so far. I hope the collective spirit won’t be damaged. But this sorry affair doesn’t help, and the more they defend themselves, the more our top politician and his top adviser demonstrate that they don’t even appreciate what the problems are. • Stephen Reicher is a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science, an adviser to the UK and Scottish governments on coronavirus and professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews

Has your heid gone soft as well ?

Dom will be fucking bricking it now...........

I think there is to be a statement (Swinney ?) at Holyrood this afternoon which may address these points.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said Cummings had “gone down in history as the first adviser to give a live press conference in Downing Street”. Usually, the paper said, “political advisers work for the government. In Cummings’ case, it is ministers who work for the adviser: one after another has been sent out to defend him.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/26/a-political-gale-worlds-press-on-dominic-cummings-self-defence

Libby Brooks At her daily press briefing, Nicola Sturgeon set out further detail of the Scottish government’s new Test and Protect strategy, which will go live on Thursday across all of Scotland’s health board areas on the same day as the country’s lockdown restrictions are due to be eased. The first minister said the required capacity of more than 15,000 tests a day was now in place, and that around 700 contact tracers will be needed in the early phase, although by the end of the month there will be a pool of around 2,000 to draw on. From Thursday, if people develop symptoms they must book a test immediately and isolate themselves. If the test is positive, they will then hear from a tracer who will ask them about recent contacts in the community. Sturgeon emphasised that their data would be secure and only available to NHS Scotland. She said that, like lockdown measures, the test and protect system was a “collective national endeavour”. She stressed that it should not be looked on as optional, with everyone needing to play their part to ensure it is successful.

Beth Rigby at Sky has just tweeted re. the contradictions between the two Cummings' stories.

She comes across as accomplished, honest, sincere and empathetic due to being well-prepared , not shouldering the burden of having to remember Dom's script and not being an entitled, weaselly, lying shitbag.

Oh, she can drive..... https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/05/26/can-dominic-cummings-wife-mary-wakefield-drive-what-car-do-they-have/

Kuntsberg looking remarkably like Mary Wakefield in that pic.

This is Johnson's Gordian knot. Or to remind ourselves of Armando Iannucci's observation...... "The PM’s dilemma. Keeps Cummings: loses the trust of the nation. Sacks Cummings: Johnson goes back to what he always was, a furtive bag of nerve endings and purposeless muscles piled inside an ill-fitting politician costume."

1. I am beyond 'prime of life'......so Mrs. FP assures me........ 2. Never considered myself a smart-arse but if that's a back-handed compliment, I'll take it......

"It is not news that Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings treat rules with contempt. But there is one rule even they might be expected to obey, because it is crucial to the maintenance of power. Never, ever, make the people who place their faith in you feel like fools." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/26/cummings-contempt-lockdown-rules-public-catholic-church-ireland

Fuxake DM.......you need some anger management........

You bad bugger DM.........I'm sure maths was only having a long lie this morning. Just noticed that Douglas Ross = Dross...(kind of....)

No shit Sherlock....he's the PM..(allegedly)......however, I don't think it'll be too long before BoJo either chucks it or is forced out. The job is too complicated for him, hence his worship at the altar of St. Dom.

Are you fucking kidding ? Cummings is reaping the harvest from seeds he helped sow a few years ago.