To not understand the outrage at Dominic Cummings?

[Wow123]

Please don’t flame me for this. I’m not posting this to be controversial. I am someone who always tries to see the good in people which has been to my detriment at time’s in the past so I’m very well aware that maybe I’m missing something here and being too kind when he possibly doesn’t deserve it.

My understanding is that Dominic Cummings is saying that he only returned to Durham on one occasion which was because he had fears about potentially being unable to look after his child if him and his wife both ended up too unwell with Covid. I can understand the logic in that.

I appreciate the government advice at that stage was to stay home but if he genuinely didn’t have anyone to help with his son, then I can understand his fears and that he was trying to put his child first as any parent would.

My understanding is that a matter of days after, the government did clarify that travelling in the event of needing support with children if you had caught covid was an exceptional circumstance and that travel in that instance was acceptable.

I personally live hundreds of miles from family and don’t have anyone I could ask for help in the local area was I to become unwell with Covid so this does resonate with me.

I understand that there were sightings of Dominic Cummings on other dates in Durham which indicate that he travelled back up there. If this is true, I definitely agree that he needs to be sacked, but at this stage, there is no proof of this.

Am I missing something here?

At the time, people were told if they were symptomatic, to stay at home, self isolate and use local support networks rather than leave the house. People (including children) have been dying alone and had no one attend their funerals because people are self-isolating.

Instead, he decided to ignore his brother in law (living two streets away apparently), and any local friends who could help, and instead drive while infectious to a then comparatively uninfectious area of the country. Coincidentally, it was his mum's birthday that weekend.

Can you really not see why it looks bad?

DC has family within a couple of miles of his London address. These family members are considerably younger than the grandparents he says he needed to care for his son.

Your not serious, surely?
He went on holiday with a symptomatic wife and had a jolly shopping trip to Barnard Castle.

Having "fears" about not being able to look after your own child is not a good enough reason. As pp said he has family in London.

It really is one rule for them and one for the rest of us.

Is this a joke?

He had himself to help with his son. He just didn’t want to do the job himself.

You think someone who is a very senior advisor at Downing Street couldn't get absolutely any support (way above what a normal person would) by just picking up the phone?

His wife is a disingenuous bullshitter too:

"“After the uncertainty of the bug itself, we emerged from quarantine into the almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown.”

Hi Boris.

My understanding is that he has family members who live close by in London . And with his contacts I am pretty sure someone would have dropped off a box of groceries ?

The outrage is because he transported a Covid-infected person across the country during a pandemic and our Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers have all lined up to say that is within the rules when we all know it isn't.

Because he chose to ignore the advice, and instead of using one of the many local solutions as hundreds of families have done, decided to drive at a time when even totally non-symptomatic people were banned from doing the same

I sometimes think I’m the only MNetter who is not generally a fan of Sturgeon, but her tweet last night (drawing a parallel to Calderwood) was excellent

Is that you Mary?

There are loads of posters on here admitting to breaking the rules and loads agreeing that it’s fine now but because a Tory does it, it’s bad.

How many parents with your kids have had Corona? What if all of us had travelled with symptoms across the country? That would have been 10,000s of very high risk trips.

If CumminGa thought it OK why didn’t he admit he was doing it? Why did his wife publish articles about their Covid experience without admitting it!

You are right the guidance was changed after he traveled. He had a hand in checking and amending all guidance. Covering his own back? Interestingly that part of the guidance was never mentioned in press conference or promoted more widely.

It’s not just what he has done either, it’s the pure arrogance of how he has dealt with it.

Your understanding is wrong. Read up on the facts and you will understand more.

According to Cummings, he self-isolated in Durham. In other words, no one in Durham helped him parent his own child apart from the other parent.

He didn’t needed to drive to Durham for that.

1. He has two close family members in London, one lives very nearby, so people don't believe there was no alternative childcare.

1. He has been seen out and about (and his car reg recorded) when he claims to have been concerned he might have Covid 19.

It's very obvious that he left London because the outbreak there was very severe, it was his mum's birthday and it's much nicer isolating in a house is a rural beauty spot than a flat in London.

He is a government advisor paid by the public sector.
Involved in policy and communications on Covid. Didn’t follow guidelines.

People died alone. Didn’t visit dying loved ones. Didn’t visit terminally unwell (non covid) close relatives. Key workers lived apart from their DC/family to reduce their families’ risks.

It’s not because he’s a Tory that’s it’s bad. It’s because he steers the government who promulgated the lockdown. He was the person telling the rest of us never to break the rules.

We quite rightly want our leaders to be role models and people we can respect, and therefore to not only be in it together with us but they have a greater responsibility. They are well paid and make decisions that can make or break us. Many of us have suffered unemployment or death of a loved one. Therefore there is quite rightly outrage at this, personally I can't get out of my mind that child that had to die alone the same day. I even think there would have been sympathy had Cummings been in a real emergency, his mum terminally ill or something like that, whereas it appears he didn't want to be ill in charge of a child. Something most of us have no choice but to crack on with. Therefore he is a weak and weaselly toad from the deepest recesses of privileged dickington on sea.

There are loads of posters on here admitting to breaking the rules and loads agreeing that it’s fine now but because a Tory does it, it’s bad.

Johnson says Cummings’ actions didn’t break the rules and even that he acted to stop the spread of the virus and save lives.

It was an absolute disgrace and shows his utter contempt for everyone else.

I agree with you, I don’t think it’s that bad.

It’s made me feel quite annoyed with journalism tbh. They’re all over the telly banging on about how terrible it is that he’s done something that might make the British public not adhere to lockdown, but we only know about it because they made the choice to publicise it. If they actually gave a shit about this having a detrimental effect on the nations health then they could have waited to make this ‘story’ public. And then to make it worse there’s journalists all over him, and each other trying to get the best picture/film of him, forcing microphones into his face for comments they know he’s not going to give, and not paying any attention at all to social distancing in the name of getting their scoop.

Bunch of hypocritical arseholes the lots of them.

At that time, the message was very very clear. Stay at home. Do not travel.

If he was so ill, he shouldn’t have been on the roads as he was a danger to himself and anyone else. If he wasn’t that I’ll, he had no reason to travel

And now they’re saying the grandparents didn’t do any childcare, so wtf were they up there for then?

It’s all total bullshit. They lied and keep lying. But why are we so surprised. It’s what they’ve always done. One rule for us, another for everyone else.