to think Dominic Cummings should go/thread 3

[SophieB100]

Third thread!

We have been told repeatedly that in the vast majority of cases this is a mild illness. Even if they did expect that they would both get it, there was no reason to expect that they would both become too ill to care for one child, which indeed, they didn't.

If he was concerned about driving, why didn’t Downing Street send a car?

That would involve another person travelling between London and Durham. I think Dominic Cummings said in his press statement that if he felt uncomfortable after the 'test drive' he would have stayed longer in Durham.

This Twitter thread by Barrister Matthew Ryder is regarding the child care argument

twitter.com/mryderqc/status/1265386037280456704?s=21

planning ahead would be calling relatives and friends to make a plan about emergency child care help if needed.

Arguably he did that with his sister and nieces.

"Test Drive"

There were also exceptions allowing people with coronavirus symptoms to leave their property to buy food and other essentials if they didn't have other options - with the advice that they should avoid contact with other people as much as possible.

So he didn't even need to travel 260 miles to get his family to drop food on his doorstep. If he had become ill as feared he could have actually (if not one of his friends, nearby family or colleague could have done) for food himself. Of course he could have also used a supermarket delivery service or one of the local hub services designed exactly for this reason.

twitter.com/ZacGoldsmith/status/1264224476394381319

I definitely prefer Sarah's response

Arguably he did that with his sister and nieces

I wonder if his sister could drive - would have been handy for getting his wife and son back from the local hospital...

The point is, neither were “incapacitated” at the time of the trip. The wife had vomited earlier in the day, but had recovered by the evening. DC thought he “might” get ill .

If they had been “incapacitated,” they wouldn’t have managed the drive.

It makes no sense. I believe we had Covid in this house in Feb without even realising it. It affected us all in completely different ways. My daughter just got up one day, threw up everywhere; felt groggy for the rest of the day and that was it. I had a dry cough and a weird taste in my mouth for about 4 days, but that was it. We have no childcare. DH works the same hours as Cummings and we have 4 kids. At no point did we declare, “Crisis - let’s leave London!!” You just get on with it. DH then had a fever for about 5 days and was a bit breathless. The other three kids had no specific symptoms but just felt washed out over the half term.

This was before any guidelines were out about “Stay Home,” but we did anyway because we weren’t sure. We all had totally different symptoms.

The Cummings only have one child fgs. Sounds like she had the vomiting reaction; he was more knocked out with it; and the child had virtually no symptoms (as is the case for many children).

What if everyone had reacted the way they did and headed for family support in other areas at the first sign of one parent being ill? The motorways would have been full.

They are either hysterical hypochondriacs or on another planet.

No, but the guidance also says you should 'plan ahead'.

Senior advisor to the gov planning strategy and implementation of nationwide lockdown does not have his own family plan.

First sign of sickness ( what me? surely we're too elite?! ). panics ( in his own words 'stressed' ) and drives across the country stretching the govs own rules to the limit.

Planning? strategy? the famed 'cleverness' ?

It's the hypocrisy as well.

Matt Hancock on Neil Ferguson>

"He described Ferguson’s decision to flout lockdown rules as “extraordinary” and one that had left him “speechless”.

Asked whether he was speechless by the presenter, Kay Burley, he said: “I am.”

“Prof Ferguson is a very, very eminent and impressive scientist and the science he’s done has been an important part of what we’ve listened to, and I think he took the right decision to resign,” Hancock added.

He said he would not have fought for Ferguson to keep his job.

Earlier, another senior minister urged people to stick unequivocally to the coronavirus lockdown.

James Brokenshire, a Home Office minister, said Ferguson had made an “error of judgment” and was right to resign. He stressed that the government’s physical distancing guidelines must be followed by law and were “there to protect us all”."

That would involve another person travelling between London and Durham.

Are you now going to try to tell us that there are absolutely no taxi firms in Durham? It's clear that you don't know the first thing about how government departments work. Government departments which send cars for people, will almost certainly have an ongoing relationship with a local taxi firm. Even if they didn't have one in Durham they could have arranged one, and told the firm where to send the invoice.

Your excuses are as pathetic as those of Cummings, Johnson and his Cabinet.

@Clavinova

Only one relevant point here.

Did he need childcare because both he and his wife were too sick to care for his child?

The answer is no

Everything else is fluff designed to confuse and mislead the public.

This Twitter thread by Barrister Matthew Ryder is regarding the child care argument

27th March he tweeted -

"Seems to be overwhelming consensus from lawyers that police trying to restrict people to ‘emergency travel only’ is unlawful."

"They have no power to stop someone driving to an isolated scenic spot to exercise away from others (nor is there any logical reason why there should be)."

Are you now going to try to tell us that there are absolutely no taxi firms in Durham?

How does the taxi driver get back to Durham?

They have no power to stop someone driving to an isolated scenic spot to exercise away from others (nor is there any logical reason why there should be)."

You really are scraping the barrel now. Actually you have been for some time now. It’s really fascinating watching the dug in Tory mindset in action, the complete lack of understanding that the more you dig, the bigger the hole gets.

The only trouble with that tweet Clavinova is that it doesn't say a word about childcare. Cummings wasn't stopped by the Police in Barnard Castle and told that he shouldn't be there.

Cummings himself has told us that he was driving while is sight was impaired, which is already an offence and nothing to do with the Covid regulations.

You are now making yourself look as stupid as the Cummings family did.

They have no power to stop someone driving to an isolated scenic spot to exercise away from others (nor is there any logical reason why there should be

I agree with that - there are plenty of posts from me about the exercise rule, especially the 1 hour rule - which is not law.

Exercise is in the law. I wonder how exercise is defined.

Sitting for 15 minutes by the river is not really exercise though

And seriously, how many people, in this day and age, actually happen to have family local who can act as “childcare” in an emergency?

I can speak for a similar part of London to where Cummings lives and I literally don’t know anyone who was born here or whose parents / siblings live locally.

Once lockdown happened, virtually nobody had alternative childcare options. Why does he think he was in exceptional circumstances? What did he think everyone else was going? Can someone explain why his child at any greater risk than any other child?

The hypocrisy is astonishing. There are millions of single parents out there. Millions of people got sick in high rise buildings with no outside space; with multiple children; babies; or those with SN.

Imagine if they’d all taken to the roads.

Clavinova

That would involve another person travelling between London and Durham. I think Dominic Cummings said in his press statement that if he felt uncomfortable after the 'test drive' he would have stayed longer in Durham.“

Interesting that Robert Jenrick didn’t consider that an additional risk. His reply was “I don’t know”.

Would have thought a professional, police or police trained driver, as DC’s position warrants, with a glass screen between himself and his passengers, would represent little issue. Or maybe an helicopter, what 40 minutes?

Did the Cummings family have no security detail in Durham? That’s surprising, given the fears he expresses for his family’s safety.
Presumably, they have driving licences?

The extra information provided by an Aide in a Downing Street rose garden made things much worse: the eye sight testing drive was ludicrous. He knew that there was a witness account (Lee) and it was in the press. Car number plate match by Sky. So he knew that he had to account for this. If he had just said, "yes, that was a stupid thing to do, it was my wife's birthday, we went out, we shouldn't have done. Although we maintained social distancing, it shouldn't have happened." Instead, knowing that he couldn't disprove this, because of Lee's account, he concocted a ridiculous reason that totally deserves all the derision it received. He drove, with his family, to test his eyesight. What a tangled web we weave...

I mentioned on Saturday's thread that DS could have sent a car. It was blatantly obvious this could have happened. Or he could have been involved via Zoom. Of course, the sensible thing and the right thing and the only thing would have been to have followed his own advice: Stay Home. Then help could have been provided in London if required (which it wasn't). The current situation of MPs defending an aide, further undermines a weak government and shows how inadequate Johnson is. The MPs surely have bigger fish to fry, than give up time to defend with increasing weak reasoning, an aide, just an aide, who really isn't in a position to be defended at all.

How does the taxi driver get back to Durham

If only they had their own taxi

You are now making yourself look as stupid as the Cummings family did.

Well I would point out that you expected the taxi driver from Durham to sleep in his cab in London for the next six months.

Well I would point out that you expected the taxi driver from Durham to sleep in his cab in London for the next six month

eh?

What do you mean by that?