To think that Dominic Cummings DID break the rules?

[LumaLou]

The day after reportedly developing coronavirus symptoms, Dominic Cummings and his family travelled 200 miles to self isolate.

While I can understand the desire to be near family, AIBU to think they should have isolated at home?

Many families in the UK have faced situations where sticking to the rules has at best inconvenient, at worst traumatic. They have managed to do so with less of a support network and less resources at their disposal than the Cummings family.

@LumaLou thanks it was years ago but has left me with tinnitus. I guess it is good to remind oneself that nasty viruses have been around before .
I do know what it is like to parent when very sick (and with a sick child) and I do totally understand the desire to get help but still driving hundreds of miles doesn't seem sensible. Why didn't they travel to him?

It’s disgusting behaviour. If Cummings doesn’t have the decency to resign, then Boris needs to sack him.

His sister lives in London so not sure why he felt the need to travel so far away.

He is a globe-headed cunt

Right. I think he has tried hard to be seen in public so he could do a Cameron and get out before shit hits the fan.

Fuck this lot of mendacious stupid self-serving tossers. I absolutely will not be told that by doing what he did he was doing what any caring parent would do. I actually care much less that he did this - he shouldn’t have but people make mistakes and bad decisions - but to be treated as if we are stupid by ministers is something else entirely. This is gaslighting, pure and simple, and if someone had asked a question about whether this was ok in March or April at the press briefing we know exactly what we’d have been told.

There needs to be thread after thread after thread about this. This is not an SW1 bubble story, this is shit leadership and dangerous distortion of reality.

When I got symptoms in mid March, my three kids and I shut the front door and did not leave the house for 14 days. My family live miles away but I asked neighbours to shop for me which they did willingly and managed to find places to deliver food. Which wasn’t that hard in central London.
When I couldn’t breathe properly one day, and thought I needed to go to hospital, that was the point I thought about activating my back up plan, which involved asking their dad to come and get them. In the Cummings’ position that back up plan should have been “when one of us is too sick to provide childcare and the other is heading that way, ask a healthy family member to come to us”.

My children were able to look after themselves but if I’d had a four year old he or she would have been stuck in front of the TV and fed beans until I felt better. To ask us to believe that two adults, one of whom wasn’t even sick, couldn’t manage that is incredible. And it never, for one single minute, occurred to me to send the children to their dad’s house until that one day when I was worried I needed an ambulance because the advice was absolutely unambiguous - you all stay put. That’s not “drive 240 miles to another house”.

I posted earlier and I still feel very angry about this, I keep replaying the sleepless nights at the beginning of lockdown when I was literally worried sick about how I would feed my kids because I was terrified to take them to the supermarket. I’m a totally lone parent with a child who is blind and a toddler. In my most extreme moments of paranoia about following the rules, I feared - fuelled in no small part by some of the silly threads on here - that we would be turned away at the supermarket door.

On the plus side, I’ve been reading the readers’ comments about the story on the website of The Times (not exactly known for its desire to undermine a Tory government), there are approximately 3.5K and barely a one of them in support of DC’s actions.

Bye, bye Dominic 👋

The Scottish CMO had the decency to apologise and within 24 hours she had gone.
What on Earth is happening here?
I had expected better..........

Boris has to get rid. This totally undermines the lockdown.

I hope someone calls a motion of no confidence in the government and soon!

I have been furious about this all day and just emailed my (Tory) MP to that effect. It's been utterly galling to see the lack of shame and the pathetic circling of the wagons by Ministers today. Fed up to the back teeth with the lot of them.

In fact, so furious I've followed up with an email to Boris Johnson as well.

Well if it's ok for DC then it's now ok for the general public.
I won't do this, but his actions make me feel like getting on a train & travelling to my home city to see our friends & family, because the lockdown is affecting my DC's mental health.
If anyone were to challenge me I would just say 'vulnerable child/children & the government have said it's ok because that aide of Boris Johnson's was allowed to!

I'm outraged (voted Tory, deeply regret).

He HAS to go. This was simply never OK in early lockdown, it's not OK now!

However we the lowly public choose to interpret guidance is one thing but government advisors should be the exemplars. Between DC and NF they've made a mockery of their own special advice. NF did the right thing at least.

If D.C. went to Durham for his kids sake surely the (possibly contagious) kid would have had contact with other family. If he went for food deliveries they sure as hell could have been arranged for him in London.

No excuses

1moresurvey

Who could call a motion of no confidence in this government? How would that work?

Is it a possibility that we could get rid of this current government?

I'd like to see Sir Keir give it a good go 

In fact in at the socially distanced random waiting queue at chip shop tonight (you have to order online the day before, pay & choose a collection time & then get your name shouted through a little serving hatch with the food already wrapped & bagged up) Dominic Cummings actions were discussed (obviously quite loudly as we were scattered about the precinct) & everyone thought he was a jeffing tw@t & if it was ok for him to gallivant then it's ok for everyone else.

I don't know what sort of car he has, but I'd have to stop and refuel at some point on a 200 mile journey. For that matter I'd have to stop and pee too. If they used a services knowing they were highly infectious with a deadly disease that's just beyond despicable. Never mind a fine, they should go to prison for that.

This has made me furious. All those families unable to comfort loved ones, meet new babies, say goodbye properly to deceased family members and close friends. The arrogance, the hypocrisy, the bloody tweets from Tory Government trying to rewrite the rules.

At the press briefing today they were obviously pushing this loophole about safeguarding/childcare allowing an exception. Two major issues with that..

This could only apply in Cumming's case if they genuinely had no other way to get help staying at home. I do not find that believable since they have family/friends in London, and it was only ever a back up plan anyway that they would be ill enough to need childcare.

Also that loophole was never really made public on a wide scale, quite the opposite, so in that sense even if he acted legally it was very much against the spirit of the guidance. As I said above, I believe it was also against the letter of the guidance since the loophole only applies if there is no alternative surely.

Combine that with the fact that he must have known that this could come out. He said today it doesn't matter how it looks. Well, it doesn't just look bad, it is bad, but also it does matter how it looks. Public perceptions and effective messaging are absolutely key to managing this crisis. Incredibly irresponsible not to take account of that.

If it is confirmed he did go back again then I don't know what defence they can mount. It appears they won't attempt to mount any but will just grumpily say they won't entertain any complaints about Cummings so don't bother making them. That will be very poorly received. No 10 is losing more credibility with every single move here, and they didn't have much of that to give away. I think they are badly misreading public opinion and sentiment here. This is not Brexit. They are not going to divide and rule on this.

It’s genius how The Mirror played this.

Report on the first trip, let DC come up with a load of bollocks, then later on the same day release that there was indeed a second trip and he was spotted having a family day out on the first one.

I can’t wait to see how he responds.

They are misreading public opinion badly on this.

It's shocking actually. I thought they were more canny than that.

I suppose that's a good thing.

They are misreading public opinion badly on this.

4½ years until an election I really don't think it matters!

It's not even convincing bollocks unless they had no way of getting help in London. The guidelines say that strict adherence may not be possible with young children, implying that you can only bend the rules if impossible not to.

No 10 saying he acted within the guidelines. If so they need to make the guidelines clearer. If you have a young child and believe you may in the near future become too unwell to care for them, you can drive as far as you like to be close to your chosen support, even if other support is available that would allow you to remain at home.

Of course he did. And should be sacked