Did Boris Johnson just call us all bad parents?!

[Hermagsjesty]

Having watched that briefing I am incandescent with rage, less at what Cummings did - I understand people might have needed to make difficult choices and compromises during lockdown - but at the excusing of it. Why not admit it was an error of judgement and apologise?

I have three children. When my husband and I both became ill with what we believed to be Coronavirus in mid-March, we took turns to watch the children whilst the other slept. I lay on the sofa, feeling the illest I have ever felt, while CBeebies played on loop. We relied on neighbours we barely knew to drop off essentials. We would have loved to lean on family but we didn’t because we believed to do so would endanger them and the wider community.

A succession of ministers - and now the Primeminister himself - have suggested that Mr. Cummings behaved as any loving parent would. But many loving parents did not behave as he did. We struggled and made sacrifices in what we believed was the National interest. Are they now suggesting we just don’t love our kids as much as Mr. Cummings loves his?

It might have been the best possible solution for all the family.

Maybe, but it was still against the rules that he helped to create, and possibly also against the law.

Many other people behaved against their families' immediate best interests, because they knew they were acting in the wider public interest in order to make everyone safer.

The law that Cummings probably breached on several different occasions has been enforced on ordinary people, thousands of whom have been fined.

This one isn't going away as police complaints have been made now.

Oh, and for context I think BJ has been absolutely shite and think it's him who should step down.

Can't work up any energy about Cummings when we've had second home owners down every weekend from London throughout lockdown.

Can't work up any energy about Cummings when we've had second home owners down every weekend from London throughout lockdown

Also twats.

But you don’t think it’s important a member of the government adheres to the rules he assisted in writing?

The journalists are shit stirrers. At the briefing yesterday, all they kept on about was fucking DC

Bloody journalists, doing their job by asking Johnson questions that he couldn't answer.

You don’t have to drive anywhere to spread the virus. Our neighbours have a constant stream of visitors. Shoppers in the supermarkets aren’t following the rules. We saw a gathering on the park yesterday. What’s driving got to do with it?

What have your neighbours got to do with it, @Sertchgi123? The fact that they break the rules doesn't make it any better that Cummings, as one of the people closely instrumental in making the rules, broke them, does it?

What driving has to do with it is that (a) we were all told very clearly not to travel if we become ill but to stay at home and isolate; and (b) by driving, Cummings substantially increased the risk to other people - in service stations and anywhere else where he stopped on the way, or if he had had a breakdown or an accident.

"BlackberryCane

Your post is further evidence that you dont understand the meaning of the term witch hunttabbymumz."

Your right BlackBerry, it's not a witchhunt, it's a fu**ing hanging.

Your attempts at defending Cummings are fucking hanging tabbymumz.

Your right BlackBerry, it's not a witchhunt, it's a fuing hanging

Don’t be daft

(Oh and you do know you can actually swear on MN right....?)

But you don’t think it’s important a member of the government adheres to the rules he assisted in writing?

None of them do, everyone has an excuse. Eg Dianne Abbott sending her kids private, Scottish Minister going to her second home, Neill F shagging his girlfriend. They are all hypocrites and I don't really expect anything else

@Sertchgi123 and @ITonyah I’m sorry that you’ve had to put up with people flouting the rules. I can see why that is frustrating. But as far as I am concerned that is what makes Cummings lack of any sort of apology so much worse, because why should ANYONE follow the rules if someone who helped write them, who had access to all the scientific advice, couldn’t?!

What have your neighbours got to do with it, @Sertchgi123? The fact that they break the rules doesn't make it any better that Cummings, as one of the people closely instrumental in making the rules, broke them, does it?

I think people are far more likely to be influenced by their neighbours behaviour than a shadowy govt advisor.

I thought people were allowed to move homes if they thought harm would be done if they stayed?

@ITonyah but both the Scottish advisor and Neill Ferguson apologised and resigned. So, why isn’t Cummings? Personally, I think it makes the government look very weak to have chosen this feeble and emotionally manipulative defence instead.

Yes, he probably should step down, but I just can't get enervated about it when everyday people have been behaving like selfish twats for weeks.

You dont know whether his parents can drive, or whether the family that lived in London were able or willing to care for him

They've never trotted out the excuse that his parents can't drive. Anyway, they're now saying that his parents didn't look after their child anyway - no doubt because they've realised that asking elderly parents to look after a potentially infectious child would have been incredibly dangerous.

If the family who lived close by couldn't care for their child, they could have done what apparently the sister did, i.e. get shopping for them. And if they weren't willing to do that, they could have got one of the local Mutual Aid organisations to help, as they were doing for numerous other self-isolating and shielding people in that area. Or they could have employed a nanny or nurse.

It might have been the best possible solution for all the family.

Lots of us have had to put up with not being able to use the best possible solution. Why is Cummings different?

If his parents are elderly and needed help themselves he may have thought it was ideal in that he could travel to care for them

Of all the excuses you have come up with, @TabbyMumz, this is perhaps the most desperate. His sister lives close to his parents. He would have had to be actively insane to think it would be a good idea to spend hours in a car with his infectious wife and then go to look after elderly parents.

Personally, I think it makes the government look very weak to have chosen this feeble and emotionally manipulative defence instead.

Which is the real story here. Cummings is rich and powerful, so him thinking the rules for the peasants don't apply to him is actually not particularly shocking. What's interesting is the way the government have spaffed so much political capital making idiot arguments to rally to his defence, especially as loads of the Cabinet are rumoured to hate him anyway, and why they have done this.

This whole thing is a witchhunt brought to a frenzy by the press. Just like Diana. They want blood and wont stop until they get it.
😂😂😂 Ah, Dominic Cummings, the people's princess. He wasn't being chased up the M1 to Durham; he didn't pop to Barnard Castle to escape the paparazzi hounds.

Incidentally, for all your "maybe we don't know his private personal exceptional special childcare circumstances that make it OK for him to break the law", how do you spin the Barnard Castle side trip and the return to Durham after he was back in London? Dropping off a cheque for the childcare?

@TabbyMumz I don’t like the way this story has been allowed to balloon either and I feel uncomfortable with protests outside peoples homes. But don’t think it’s a witch hunt. Cummings and the government could have diffused this with an apology, in my opinion. It’s their response that has upset and confused people so much. Surely, when an advisor becomes the story you get rid of them? So why haven’t they?

We will all have forgotten about this in a week.

Yes how dare Abbott send her kids to Private School, clearly a breach of the law!

From March 22nd.... the latest guidance from the Government - issued on Sunday night - says: “Essential travel does not include visits to second homes, camp sites, caravan parks or similar, whether for isolation purposes or holidays"

Just a hunch but I reckon the very wealthy, most senior man in government, or his assistant, could have arranged transport to get his parents to London in an emergency, even if they can't drive and don't have a chauffeur

She was a raging hypocrite though. And if DC felt that harm would have come to him or his family then he was perfectly within the law/guidance/advice/latest wittering from govt to leave home.

I think he's an oddball and the govt have been shite, so couldn't care less if he resigns or not.

The whole thing fucking stinks and I don’t think it’s going away. Nor should it!

Actually noone knows the facts. Because they are private to them and should stay that way.

We know what they themselves have told us, @TabbyMumz, and they simply don't support your increasingly desperate excuses. Your suggestion, for instance, that he might have gone to support his parents whilst his wife self-isolated doesn't accord with his own account that he stayed with his wife.

They have never once suggested that their parents needed assistance

They shouldn't have to. It's none of your business or anyone else's.

You're the one who suggested that that might be why they travelled, not me. Do you seriously think that if this was their reasoning they wouldn't have produced it as an excuse instead of the ludicrous "We did it because we're loving parents" nonsense?

As for your bleats about witch hunts: does it occur to you that most of this could have gone away if he had just put his hands up and admitted he was bloody stupid? It's the fact that he lined up numerous government ministers and the PM himself to suggest he complied with the rules, coupled with his refusal to answer basic questions, that has escalated everything. And before you also bleat that he doesn't have to answer questions, remember that he has chosen to do so, but in an incredibly selective way; and that he is an official taking public money and who is extremely influential on government policy that he then flouted.

Its mob justice, pure and simple. People dont care about the facts, they just want blood.

Its mob justice, pure and simple. People dont care about the facts, they just want blood

Talk about over-dramatic.

I’m not interested in blood. I’m interested in the government showing they have at least some integrity by ensuring that people don’t remain in positions that are untenable.

DC could have behaved exactly the same and yet not been at fault if he hadn’t lied, his wife lied and made a mockery of everyone else doing what they were supposed to.