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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If you were annoyed at Dominic Cummings before

999 replies

NoMoreReluctantCustodians · 26/05/2020 07:41

How has his performance in the rose garden affected your opinion?

YANBU it's made things worse
YABU its cleared things up for me

OP posts:
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17
JudyCoolibar · 26/05/2020 08:20

All his original decisions are redolent of an attitude that he's too big and important to be bound by the rules for the little people. That wouldn't have been so bad if he had admitted that he had messed up and apologised, but the has made it ten times worse by trying to front it out - essentially, he has just reinforced the view that he doesn't feel he should be accountable for his actions, and that he can tell the most ludicrous lies and expect to get away with it. You can bet we would never have heard about the little trip to Barnard Castle if he hadn't been seen there by a witness they couldn't trash, so goodness knows what else has gone on that they have managed to keep under wraps. I suspect it has a very great deal to do with the highly dodgy contract for the tracing app.

I think what is really harmful, however, is his attempt to retrofit what the rules actually say to claim everything he did was fully compliant. In essence he's sent out a message to say that, if you complied by the rules, you were a fool, and you needn't comply any more. He's made it extremely hard for the police to enforce them. And that is going to cost lives. For that I can't see how on earth we can just move on from what he has done.

TheFlis12345 · 26/05/2020 08:20

Other than the castle eye test crap, he didn’t tell us anything new. The press missed a lot of key questions including asking why the family members he has in London could not help out with childcare (which he didn’t actually need anyway).

GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit · 26/05/2020 08:22

I got really annoyed by all the hypothetical what if scenarios he was spinning and had to switch it off.

Nothing happened which meant they had to leave London. It was all about things which might have possibly happened in the future.

So I read the full transcript in the Spectator.

Additional thoughts were. He's definitely lying about the day out. He's basically done a Putin. He wants to distract everyone into arguing about the ins and outs of the silly excuses.

His story actually illustrates why they should never have left because his son and wife ended up in hospital potentially spreading the disease to another area of the country.

headhurtstoomuch · 26/05/2020 08:22

How on earth does this government think single parents cope every bloody day when they get sick and have no family support?

Yesterday's press conference was a joke. He needs to go.

The only interesting thing that came out of it was his insistence he hadn't made that second visit. I'm hoping whichever paper (think it was the guardian/ mirror) have the pics etc to prove he did.

ZaraW · 26/05/2020 08:22

I pretty much agree with this commentary

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/25/regrets-st-dom-had-a-few-but-then-again-too-few-to-mention

doubleshotespresso · 26/05/2020 08:23

I was seething all day Saturday about this so had high hopes on Sunday for some shred of human decency to be displayed to the nation via even a small acknowledgement, apology , some level of contrition. I felt a resignation was vital to appease the British public.
We were treated instead to an insulting farce and then watched refusals from our PM to even answer key questions. Deeply offensive and frankly maddening.
He's got to go!
YANBU

Afishcallledbob · 26/05/2020 08:24

I just find it infuriating that I spent the week before lockdown feeling like shit looking after 3 kids on my own as I obviously took the stay at home if you have symptoms to mean just that. Or maybe I just don’t care enough about them.

As for driving to test your eyes, how dangerous is that?

Changename5000 · 26/05/2020 08:24

I think he was foolish doing what he did due to his position but losing his job is not a proportional outcome.

wherestheotherone · 26/05/2020 08:24

He wanted to get out of London. He did what he wanted. He made rubbish choices. Now let's move on

Porcupineinwaiting · 26/05/2020 08:24

I've rarely been so angry. And over the past few months I've been angry a lot.

olympicsrock · 26/05/2020 08:26

I did have some sympathy from him hearing about the state of stress he was in when he made the decision .However it was the wrong thing to do and I am angry that he didn’t acknowledge this and apologise. The eye test thing is bullshit.

Peapod29 · 26/05/2020 08:26

It made me cringe so hard I actually felt a little bit sorry for him. So in a way that’s better than hatred.

ITonyah · 26/05/2020 08:29

If someone had posted on Mumsnet in March ‘I have thrown up and feel really really shit, have I got covid?’ they would have been told of course not and to stop being so attention seeking

Yup.

CeibaTree · 26/05/2020 08:29

One of the reason given for staying home and not going to a second home was not to overwhelm local hospitals, yet his child used up hospital resources 260 miles from home - why did he not address this point? And why did his wife go in the ambulance when still showing symptoms of C-19 and presumably putting the paramedics at risk? Of course you wouldn't want your child to go to hospital alone but other families had to endure this.

tabulahrasa · 26/05/2020 08:29

I watched thinking there might possibly be some reason that made sense or some information that hadn’t been reported on.

But no, his complex and extraordinary situation was literally what every parent in Britain had to do, - come up with a plan in case they both got ill.

Only he didn’t bother to ask relatives that live close to them, neighbours, workmates, friends or use his considerable resources to sort professional childcare or just wait to see if they both got ill and then have one of the Durham relatives brought down if needed...

And the fact that he’s still insisting that it was fine and backed by the prime minister is actually ludicrous.

Annebronte · 26/05/2020 08:30

The insistence on theirs being a complex situation really irritates me. It certainly sounds like a stressful one, and one that that made him panicked and irrational , but it wasn’t complex. Thousands of families have coped far more competently and safely with much more complex situations in recent months. The Barnard Castle thing is an absolute joke. He’s either a liar or a negligent parent (for driving a child when there’s even the slightest doubt about safe driving). Liar seems more likely.

ITonyah · 26/05/2020 08:31

I thought he styled it out, the press pack looked like fools and the questions were embarrassing. I wasn't particularly bothered by it in the first place and I'm even less bothered by it now.

I'm glad I'm in a place where I don't feel genuine hatred for anyone.

Institutkarite · 26/05/2020 08:31

I wasn't annoyed with him before and I'm not annoyed with him now.
HTH

LaurieMarlow · 26/05/2020 08:31

Time to move on

I’m so shocked at how happy people are to be taken for fools.

Is it the fact that they’re all monied aristo types? Or would you take this kind of blatant shit from anyone?

Walkaround · 26/05/2020 08:31

I think it made it worse - what an arse to increase the risk to himself and his child of also getting very ill by confining them in close quarters together for hours while he drove to Durham without stopping, which would have been exhausting and therefore dangerous. Since when is making things more risky for your child doing the right thing?

HorseChestnutTree · 26/05/2020 08:31

I’m looking forward to her sister, who lives very near them in London, being forced to back up the idea that the only people able to do back up childcare, which let’s remember they didn’t actually need, were some teenage nieces.

I don't think she has a sister, it is her brother who lives in London. Don't know why he would not have been suitable to do childcare in an emergency- I was hoping the journalists would ask him about that.

RubyViolet · 26/05/2020 08:33

He is loving this, he is such a narcissist. Total attention seeker.

CocoCorona · 26/05/2020 08:33

Didn’t really give a shit about him before, I mean I knew he was a rat, but he wasn’t the only rat in politics. Now he’s on another level. Ismail died alone and was buried alone without his parents. If only they were allowed to use their better judgement and drive to his funeral at least. This makes me cry. I have an almost 13 year old.

Pleasenodont · 26/05/2020 08:34

He wanted to see a nice castle and sit by a riverbank with his wife and son on her birthday, he didn’t drive for an hour to ‘test his eyesight’. He stuttered throughout and kept repeating the same bullshit, I’d be amazed if anyone with half a brain cell fell for it. The Tories think we’re all total dopes.

FreiasBathtub · 26/05/2020 08:34

It's not healthy for a country when somebody who makes the laws does not consider themselves subject to the laws.

Everyone who speeds, everyone who smokes weed, everyone who evades their taxes - they can all justify it to themselves. As a country we say - rightly or wrongly - that none of these things are ok. If your justification stands up to the judgement of a group of your peers, through an established (and yes, flawed) judicial process then you won't have to take the consequences. If you can't convince a group of your peers that your justification is valid, you will receive the consequence that society has assigned to your bad judgement call.

Why isn't Dominic Cummings subject to the same process as someone who speeds, or who gets caught smoking weed, or who evades their taxes? Why does his judgement only need to be justified to the prime minister? This is what I don't understand. It's a terrible, terrible precedent for our country.