DC isn't stupid

[cakeandcustard]

He doesn't think the rules need to apply to him because he is of superior intellect to the masses. He would have known that the 'testing his eyesight' excuse for traveling to Barnard Castle sounds stupidly far fetched. The only way he can be ousted is to resign or be pushed based on the civil service code of conduct. He's blatantly showing us that it doesn't matter how he behaves as he has Boris is backing him up and insisting that we just 'move on'.

AIBU in thinking this is just his way of proving that he is untouchable and he's probably enjoying it? It feels like a sort of old boys bet 😕

“AIBU in thinking this is just his way of proving that he is untouchable and he's probably enjoying it?”

I think he thought that childcare sounded like an understandable reason because he’s completely out of touch he has no experience of having to parent while his wife is unwell, or him and isn’t the one who usually sorts childcare so assumed people would sympathise with him.

I agree it's depressing when people have made huge sacrifices to try and control the virus.

It has made me wonder how couples manage if they are both incapacitated and have no childcare options in their home town - given that especially graduates tend to move (to London, typically) to find work and may not have close relatives remotely near

We can all drive where we like now

It's his way of showing us that he believes himself to be above us and that we are stupid and that even if we are not, he can still address us as if we are because there's nothing we can do and he doesn't care.

He and his buddies all made this perfectly clear already over the course of last year and the stupid country voted the fuckers in anyway, by a landslide. We cannot say we weren't warned. Yes, he holds us in utter contempt. Why wouldn't he? He and the government showed us nothing but scorn and loathing and we rewarded them for it.

He reminds me of someone I know who would definitely get off on the controversy.

DC has always thought himself to be intellectually superior to us plebs. He loves to play games with people, using focus groups and dubious manipulation of target audiences on social media to peddle lies and division. He will do whatever it takes it's all a game to him. Durhamgate is just the latest of a long list of reasons why he shouldn't be anywhere near our government.

I'm now wondering if Boris is more likely to quit than DC.

I can't decide if DC is one of those men who have never looked after his kid alone (hence dashing to Durham for possible childcare) or he had massive PFB and didn't think that sticking the tv on and ordering takeaways or ordering an assistant to being food was good enough.

I do think he was stupid, irresponsible and just plain wrong but wonder if the fact that he is so vilified by the press and has had demonstrators, etc outside his home played into it. Round here there are volunteer groups helping where people are ill but I don't think I would feel very safe asking for help from community support groups in his position when he seems to inspire such vitriol

Surely there are interns and Downing St assistants that could be used?

I won't let go of having the piss taken out of us all in this way. They are just relying on people letting it drop because they get bored when it is so disgusting that they are retrospectively writing the rules to excuse what he did. I don't understand the pathological lying, if he had just admitted to it earlier and not got the PM and cabinet to construct these insulting lies the story would have gone away already.

I'm now wondering if Boris is more likely to quit than DC

I think so, I seriously think he can't be bothered with it anymore

@CalmYoBadSelf

I do think he was stupid, irresponsible and just plain wrong but wonder if the fact that he is so vilified by the press and has had demonstrators, etc outside his home played into it. Round here there are volunteer groups helping where people are ill but I don't think I would feel very safe asking for help from community support groups in his position when he seems to inspire such vitriol

That's only been since the weekend when everything came out. He and various ministers have been trying to sell the plebs on the idea that it's the press being all paparazzi - it's just another lie. Back when he left, no-one was watching. Else we'd have known in March that he was doing it.

Maybe he really is super intelligent, I mean just look through the threads and twitter. How many ppl now saying they’re going to work/shops/family/beachfront etc because of him, B’cos he didn’t follow the rules so they won’t, the gov and press have been saying for weeks unlocking us “plebs” is proving more difficult than implementing the lockdown.

Both Boris and Cummings are pinning it on a media storm and counting on the fact that the public will get bored and move on, at any other time there would be demonstrations and a march on Westminster. This is not possible with the pandemic.

What other course of action do we have?

I don’t understand the anger towards DC.
It smacks of internalised misogyny to so devalue childcare that a parent is being hounded from the job, vilified in the press, mobbed outside their house for putting their family first in what everyone close to them has confirmed we’re exceptional circumstances allowed by the lockdown rules. Just like going and visiting a suicidal friend/relative was allowed as an exception to the no mixing households rule.
If DC were a woman, the mumsnet reaction would be the opposite.

PlanDeRaccordement whether male or female DC made a personal decision that his circumstances were exceptional. Many people have looked at the situation and decided that actually, under the lockdown rules imposed by the government, the people were expected to (and did) deal with similar circumstances without driving the length of the country for family support.

His actions have been under intense scrutiny and neither the media, public nor DC himself have managed to come up with a suitable reason why his experience was exceptional.

“If DC were a woman, the mumsnet reaction would be the opposite.”

His wife isn’t a woman?....

Him and his cronies have no idea what real life is like, thats why its come back to bite him so badly. Oh yeah, but its us who are the 'elites'.

lol at misogyny. You arnt going to be able to pay that card until you empty your nasty party of Christopher Chope and thousands of others.

I think it is more internalised misogyny to readily accept his wife being ill as a justifiable reason for him to drive 260 miles in a pandemic with an infected person in the car to dump his son on the next available female relative! Just look after your own child! Not much to ask!

Boris Johnson has no choice but to keep him. If it wasn’t before it could not be clearer after today’s waffle and bluster that Cummings is pulling the strings and Boris is nothing more than a flaccid sock puppet.

PlanDeRaccordement
I don't actually believe his actions were the actions of a caring parent - male or female.

The childcare excuse is absolute horseshit.

As if Dominic Cummings and his wife don’t have a nanny, or couldn’t get one at short notice. Get real.

They clearly think we all have one brain cell between us.

.

PlanDeRaccordement

Are you the only person who doesn't get the fact that Cummings has lied and has been backed up by Johnson?

(Or do you think it was responsible parenting to drive your kid in a confined car space hundreds of miles with a Covid infected parent? Do you think it was responsible Parenting to take your kid out again in the same car to a holiday area and drive for a day out when you thought your eye site might be impaired? Do you think it was mere coincidence it was his wife's birthday the day they had their little trip?)