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?

He drove his symptomatic wife across the country. They spent hours together in a car. When they got there they stayed together in the house (not wrong granted) but they looked after their child themselves- so they didn’t need the childcare did they? They live in London which is their primary residence- where the guidance tells you to stay. And let’s not forget that DC is involved in making the rules up, therefore he should be the last person breaking them.

The most important rule of all is that we should stay at home if we or someone in our household has coronavirus. It's about 1000 x more important than anything else they have dreamt up.

In order for lockdown to end we will have to keep doing this and indeed expand it to staying at home once we have been in contact with anyone with the disease. That is what this huge effort to get Test, Trace, Isolate working is.

Without the Isolate part this is utterly futile.

Dominic Cummings should just have stayed at home. He knows all the facts relating to this disease extremely well. The chances of both parents becoming very unwell in their age group are low. In the unlikely event this happened help could have come to them.

We can twist the facts to imagine odd scenarios in which this couldn't have happened. If any were to actually apply I would imagine a clear press statement explaining it all would have been issued. Instead his wife wrote a long article about it pretending they had been in London the whole time.

Also cummings always shits on about how he hates "the elite" and is in touch with the working person - utter shit, he is part of this so called "elite" that he (allegedly) despises.

Why is there one rule for him and a stay at home, save lives, protect the NHS rule for the rest of the country? Many parents have been ill and had children at home to look after, why risk giving it to elderly parents it's just selfish of him and wrong for Boris to think it's OK

1. He’s a government advisor. He needs to be whiter than white, or the whole thing falls apart like it has. Why should people do as he say while he is above his own advice? He has access to resources and support the majority of people do not.

1. He reportedly broke lockdown at least five times between end of March mid April. It’s not just the childcare thing people are pissed off about.

I neither agree nor disagree OP. Basically, I find myself not caring about it at all. I literally do not give a crap what he has or hasn’t done.

I stopped caring about people not following lockdown guidance a while ago because it will just drove me nuts seeing as, from my perceived view of the world, most people aren’t bothering to stick to the rules anyway.

@NailsNeedDoing

You’re missing the point - Johnson said clearly in his briefing last night that Cummings did nothing wrong.

So if others do the same, they’re doing nothing wrong either.

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.

People breaking the rules to that extent at the height of lockdown were arrested and fined. My local force fined hundreds of people travelling to a pretty rural area during lockdown.

Two scientific advisors were sacked for similar reasons.

It has fuck all to do with him being a Tory and everything to do with trying to persuade people to follow the rules being harder if those who make the rules don't follow them.

Hes a horrible horrible man who has no respect for anyone but himself.

He's done so much damage to this country and has far too much power. He is the one running the country and he's unelected.

BUT much aa I despise the man, I blame Boris Johnson more than him.

His update yesterday was shameful. Our Prime Minister has killed lots of people due to incompetence. Yesterday he stood and in a few minutes has killed many more people. That was not incompetence yesterday. It was something much more sinister.

He has family living in London who could have dropped off shopping etc

Presumably he has some sort of childcare in place usually

He went 3 times, his car has been seen there by police so how Boris can continue to deny this beggars belief

He visited a castle 30 miles from his address

If he stopped at any point on that journey (which is likely with a 4 year old in the back) he exposed people to the virus

His parents are elderly so to expose them is beyond selfish

He literally wrote the rules and then broke them whilst the rest of us sat at home like responsible citizens, a lot of people have made huge sacrifices whilst he swanned around the country doing whatever the hell he liked

He has shown zero humility and is probably laughing in all our faces, he’s a scumbag, as is Boris, I hate the pair of them

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

Yes, that is what the media would do in China.

He visited a castle 30 miles from his address

This part isn’t true - Barnard Castle is a place, not an actual castle.

He wasn’t even unwell wen he travelled up. Was just worried he might get unwell.

Can you imagine if everyone had done this? How much the virus would have been spread around? His partner was unwell so he drove a contagious person up there putting others at risk. He quite possibly stopped for fuel. I don’t believe for one minute he never saw his parents while he was there but no way to prove it.

He was seen strolling around a town 30 miles from his parents at a time we were still being told we couldn’t drive to places for exercise. Derbyshire police were chasing people using drones along frogget edge and shaming them, photos all in the national media.

People were being issued with fines for doing what he did! And he helped write the bloody rules and then decided they didn’t apply to him, Only to plebs like you. And me.

I think it's because many of us have had conversations about what to do with young children if / when one of us gets ill. My DP is a surgeon who was redeployed to a covid ward and for the first few weeks he had no real PPE. We sat down to discuss what we would do if he got ill.

We decided to follow the guidance. The person ill would isolate in the house (we're lucky to have a second bedroom with an ensuite) while the other parent would look after our toddler. If both of us were sick, we just hoped it would be staggered.

We knew most people get mild symptoms. We had a leaflet about community support.

We didn't even think about driving 1 mile to his parents, or 20 miles to mine.

We would have followed the guidance which states if one person in the family shows symptoms, stay at home. He didn't do that.

Regardless of barnard Castle being a place not a castle, he was still strolling round somewhere he shouldn’t have been. The witness said he’d been for a walk at the river. You know, a nice touristy beauty type spot that we were all told to stay away from.

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.

When you're the person whose helping to write the guidance, it's probably a good idea if you can actually stick to it, no?

He had no need whatsoever to drive to bloody Durham. If anyone else had done it they'd have been fined and sent home. And Boris is standing up for him and saying it's perfectly fine.

Or are you just being wilfully obtuse?

"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."
So are you travelling now in case you get sick. That's what he did (according to some of the stories)

It was bad enough that he did it - I could roll my eyes at that, in the "yup, of course there's one rule for them and another for the rest of us, typical ruling elite" sort of way.

But the statements since have confirmed they do not give a shit about the public, or the sacrifices millions of citizens have made. Now I'm furious whenever I think of it.

The government set out the rules and if peasants broke said rules they received a fine. The rules were very clear: stay at home and do not leave at all for a fortnight if you have symptoms which his wife did at the time they travelled up to Durham. The other rule was essential travel only: to work if you couldn’t work from home, to the food shop or for medical appointments. Which part of travelling 500 miles (round trip) for ‘childcare’ is essential exactly?

He broke two of the biggest rules, one of which could have endangered others (there’s no way they travelled so far without stopping at a service station). Moreover, people are pissed off because it makes a complete mockery of the effort most of us have put in over the past two months to stay at home.

You’re missing the point - Johnson said clearly in his briefing last night that Cummings did nothing wrong.

I’m not missing the point, I’m just making another point alongside.

But if the man genuinely did travel for childcare issues, then I don’t think it’s all that bad. He moved from one private house to another private house in a private car. He probably shouldn’t have done, but if the public really are stupid enough to take unnecessary risk for themselves on the basis of one politician making one journey that he could have avoided, then this country has much bigger problems than one renegade Politician.

He chose to ignore the rules of the govt he works for.
But the real reason for the fuss is that the Labour Party and a fair proportion of the Tory party loath him and they see this as a prize opportunity to be rid of him.

So do you think you “understand” now, OP, or is there something you’re still not getting?

Oh and the childcare excuse is frankly laughable. This was ‘just incase’ he also fell so ill neither of them could care for their three year old. They were both fine deeming the travel even more unnecessary. Most parents with covid just got on with it.

I honestly can't comprehend how anyone thinking about this isn't incandescent with rage.

One of the people who sets the rules decides that the rules don't apply to them, and flagrantly breaches them. They know it was wrong, because they hid the truth - if they genuinely thought they were in the right, they would have admitted it. They accuse the police of lying. Then their mates rally round and say "oh it's because he's a good father, I don't see why people are criticising him."

The hypocrisy is disgusting. If it's ok for him to put his parents at risk by travelling to them, put others at risk by travelling, put the rural hospitals at risk by travelling there - why the fuck are the rest of us bothering?

At a time when people were DYING alone because of the rules around lockdown he went on a long unnecessary jaunt WITH symptoms. He did what we were told was the worst thing to do - take What was possibly/likely Covid out of his house not just to the surrounding community but across the country.
He had help nearby if he needed it, he had the NHS volunteers and neighbours that WE have all had to rely on in isolation. And as a top political aide I’m pretty sure he had some other options open to him for grocery delivery etc.
Instead he goes that way, to his parents ( who were vulnerable ) to what is essentially a 2nd home, AND goes out for at least one public walk with his whole family? Wasn’t so concerned about the kid’s health them was he.