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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think Dominic Cummings has to go?

999 replies

RoosterPie · 22/05/2020 20:39

Dominic Cummings apparently travelled to his parents house while meant to be self isolating due to covid symptoms.

Given what happened with Neil Ferguson and Catherine Calderwood, AIBU to think his position ought to be untenable?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/22/dominic-cummings-durham-trip-coronavirus-lockdown

OP posts:
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15
chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:42

What is it, 1/5 of people who admit to lockdown infringements - I expect those people needed that for their healt

Other people in power have broken lockdown rules and have resigned.

What's the difference?

LondonJax · 23/05/2020 11:42

I don't know what they should have done legally @TheNumberfaker. But let's just analyse what they did do and how they could have done better.

Wakefield starts throwing up with coronavirus, Cummings comes home. Fine. 24 hours later he becomes ill to the point of going to bed, with a fever. They decide they'd be better off at his parents because they can isolate AND have someone on hand if the worst happens. So they drive 4-5 hours, presumably stopping for a pee at least once. I don't know many 4 year olds that don't need a wee in that length of journey. One of them would have gone with him. So you now have at least one symptomatic Covid 19 patient wandering into a motorway service station loo.

Alternatively, if grandparents had agreed to keep an eye on the child, one of them could have come down by car or train and stayed with them or in a hotel. As I said, at his level, if he'd have called Downing Street, they probably would have helped facilitate it as it was helping a person who was sick, so allowed.

But you don't drive all those miles if you're so ill that, by day 6, your partner believes you need to be in hospital - which is what Wakefield wrote in her Spectator article that I linked to above.

The well travel to the sick not the other way round.

chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:43

They thought they would need the help though

So why not admit it and be open about it....

Why the secrecy?

flamegame · 23/05/2020 11:43

The difference is that others did it purely for pleasure, whereas the Cummings has legitimate reason to believe at that time that they needed help.

chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:44

I notice that Spectator article has now become subscriber only.

merrymouse · 23/05/2020 11:45

Does anyone know, rather than just have an opinion on what they should have done?

Following the government's advice, 2 and 3 would restrict infection to a small circle of people who could quarantine, per the government's advice.

The problem with travelling from London to Durham is that you risk infecting other people on the way (and causing an accident if you are so ill that you are incapable of childcare).

flamegame · 23/05/2020 11:45

Presumably for the same reasons the 1/5 of people who’ve broken rules aren’t shouting about it - because of the witch-hunts. *i am morally pure I should add, no grandparents or family anywhere near or interested in helping, no second home or lover!

MarieQueenofScots · 23/05/2020 11:45

The difference is that others did it purely for pleasure, whereas the Cummings has legitimate reason to believe at that time that they needed help

Yeah. Like the “legitimate” discussion of how sick he was by his wife....

chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:45

The difference is that others did it purely for pleasure, whereas the Cummings has legitimate reason to believe at that time that they needed hel

Do you think that driving 250 miles when ill with Covid-19 is a good idea?

What do you think would have happened if this had been an AIBU? What would you have said?

PotholeParadise · 23/05/2020 11:47

I think it’s a grey area - sick with kids, there was no guidance I recall seeing

Do you know what other MNers in the same situation have been doing? Staying inside. Some of them have been single parents, even.

How odd that Dom didn't go on to be instrumental in clarifying that you were allowed to travel when sick if you wanted help with childcare after this experience to ease the load on the rest of Britain's parents.

PerkingFaintly · 23/05/2020 11:47

If someone was going to travel for care, it should have been someone from the non-Covid household (the sister?) coming down to London.

The carer should then have self-isolated for 14 days after the Cummings household had recovered. They should probably have remained in London until end of lockdown, but even the carer returning to Co Durham would be less appalling than two infectious people and a small child who would need rest stops, driving 270 miles while supposedly too sick to do childcare, and effectively joining a Co Durham household (which is what happened when the Co Durham family provided childcare).

This is the sort of thing mere plebs have do:
Coronavirus: Nurse 'hasn't hugged son, two, in five weeks'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-52772306

The Born-To-Rules stand in front of cameras clapping for nurses like this, then do exactly what the heck they like.

Notonthestairs · 23/05/2020 11:48

Oh good grief they knew they had broken lockdown which is why Mary Wakefield/Mrs C carefully didn't mention it in her Spectator article.

Really don't understand people trying to give him an out.

flamegame · 23/05/2020 11:48

Tbh I would’ve told them to go if they thought they were likely to get sicker on an AIBU and could get family help. I assume they didn’t go into service stations, possible to wee al fresco and pack food beforehand.

I can see why other people take a headline view even if I don’t agree, it’s debatable.

merrymouse · 23/05/2020 11:50

They thought they would need the help though...

Lots of people who actually did need help coped alone because they were told by the government that they must follow the rules - stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives.

If they message was "stay at home, protect the NHS, saves lives, unless you'd rather not", they should have said.

titsbumfannythelot · 23/05/2020 11:51

Went to do some research on Cummings. It seems that Wikipedia has hit the nail on the head.

to think Dominic Cummings has to go?
chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:51

Tbh I would’ve told them to go if they thought they were likely to get sicker on an AIBU and could get family help

Lots of people will have been in a similar position. Lots of people have made heartbreaking sacrifices during this crisis.

He made the wrong decision. For Classic Dom, he didn't see how this would have worked out. Isn't he famous for planning scenarios.

He has fucked up. But no doubt he will be defended by the Government.

chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:52

Rishi Sunak
@RishiSunak
·
32m
Taking care of your wife and young child is justifiable and reasonable, trying to score political points over it isn’t.

flamegame · 23/05/2020 11:53

Well 1/5 of people admit to having broken lock down rules, I expect a lot of them had good reason too so let’s not pretend that everyone has been a saint in the face of dire need.

chomalungma · 23/05/2020 11:56

xpect a lot of them had good reason too so let’s not pretend that everyone has been a saint in the face of dire need

Of course not.

But it's all about the optics and the message.

twinnywinny14 · 23/05/2020 11:56

If what he did wasn’t breaking the rules then why has it been kept secret for so long? The guidance was stay at home unless for one of the 4 reasons, which this was not. It was also if you have symptoms stay at home and don’t go out. It’s not complicated and those trying to justify are wrong.

Frazzled2207 · 23/05/2020 11:58

@flamegame
I’m fairly sure that less than 1 in 5 broke rules ....when they were actually ill.

PerkingFaintly · 23/05/2020 11:59

BTW, I don't think Cummings' inexcusable scurry north contributed to his uncle's death.

www.theguardian.com/law/2020/apr/05/retired-senior-judge-sir-john-laws-dies-after-contracting-coronavirus
Laws, 74, had been in hospital for three weeks with sepsis and other health problems. He was seriously ill and at first tested negative for coronavirus but subsequently contracted the virus and died on an isolated ward at Chelsea and Westminster hospital in London.

SharonasCorona · 23/05/2020 11:59

Taking care of your wife and young child is justifiable and reasonable, trying to score political points over it isn’t.

Well Rishi Sunak is a twat for not realising that the public are upset too, not just the opposition.

C8H10N4O2 · 23/05/2020 11:59

This sounds like there was some lying going on

And rank hypocrisy. The devout RC using the religious slot to spout propaganda about St Dominic whilst breaking the rules herself.

The rules about travel whilst infected were one of the few areas impossible to argue. You might just make a case for someone travelling to them if they or a child needed care, it was absolutely not acceptable for two infected people to travel to the other end of the country.

This is a couple who could easily afford to buy in care if needed but who knowingly decided the rules didn't apply to them.

SharonasCorona · 23/05/2020 12:01

Mary’s article in the spectator is so cringeworthy. Her faux bewilderment at Catholic Churches being closed when they’re never closed. As if they had a choice. Twat.

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