To think it grossly unfair that Emily Maitlis won't be on Newsnight tonight and DC and BJ are still in their jobs?

[theduchessstill]

It just sums up this shit country and the state it's in imo.

Watching Johnson stuttering and blustering his way through the select committee this afternoon showing that he doesn't have a grip on the crisis at all and then finding that Maitlis, who is excellent at her job, has been chastised and suspended feels like yet another blow to decency in the UK. It comes after the government refusing to appear on the show for weeks as well - too scared.

How much longer will this shit go on?

Susie 'His son was tested and he was negative ? So don’t quite understand your assumption here ?In fact I don’t think any of them actually were tested positive ?'

The point is that they decided to travel from London, at the time the epicentre of the disease to the North East while they suspected they had Covid19 and had started having symptoms of illness. They came into contact with health care workers there (and hopefully not other patients) in a hospital potentially exposing them to the disease. I am assuming that the health care workers there would rather they had followed the guidelines and 'stayed at home?' So yes, they potentially put these health care workers at a risk of coming into contact with Covid19 they wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to. Do you disagree?

Most people would say it's unwise, reckless even, to make that trip when we are trying to contain the spread of the disease? If the public don't agree with that we haven't got much hope of test, trace & isolate working have we?

Oh and at the time there were lots of reports from Italy about how Covid19 was being spread by Italians moving across the country to second homes, something Mr Cummings would have been well aware of.

These are the BBC rules, she seems to have broken them because she hasn’t represented all points of view. She spoke as if she was reporting facts. She wasn’t, it was opinion.

It was AN opinion, we have no idea if it were her opinion. To me it summed up the general opinion I’ve seen pretty much everywhere be it here or on SM and chatting with folk over the past day or two.

The piece would have been reviewed by several people who’s job it is to decide if it met the guidelines and clearly it passed the sniff test. BBC have taken the cowards way out by apologising because they had some complaints.

Absolutely the correct decision to remove her.

There is no evidence they removed her. In fact Katie Razzall tweeted to say Matlis had not been asked to step aside and she wouldn’t have agreed to step in if that were the case. More likely Matlis stood her ground and refused to go on.

Andrew Neil puts his views forward all the time. It’s ok to make a statement that echos the beliefs of the majority and was backed up by fact. And it was. It is then for others to argue against it. People can put a case forward to introduce a programme.

And about that I am furious

Yy. Dom is not relevant, Dom's family is not relevant and at this point it does not matter if Dominic turns out to be a saint. It doesn't matter if Saint Dominic of Durham personally healed 50 people of coronavirus with a laying on of hands, because the problem is now the Prime Minister.

I think someone mentioned needing Boris for Brexit upthread. Well, considering he can't give one small briefing to his own nation without enflaming the situation, how can he be an asset in international negotiations?

Cummings and Johnson should both resign. He obviously can’t do the job without this unelected bureaucrat, And Cummings is the Svengali that no one needs.

Exactly Bubbles as does Stephen Sackur.

Not sure what your point is there Paddington, the BBC has done an amazing job particularly recently providing programmes for education and releasing archive material. It routinely covers sports, popular programming like ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and a whole host of genres and subgenres aimed at different viewing audiences. I detest sport, I don’t have school-age children and I loathe popular programmes of the kind represented by series like ‘Strictly’. I do however watch BBC4, HARDtalk, Newsnight, and so on….Suggesting all programming and all programmes should cater for every possible audience is a bit of an odd expectation. Similarly what’s in the news is the remarkable response that Conservative MPs have had to the Cummings’s affair, and the huge volume of emails and messages they’ve had from their constituents and their voters complaining about the government action on this (or lack of), and that’s what Newsnight reported on and responded to….The majority reaction. Because strangely enough that was the news story! Seems fair enough to me…

Thanks for raising this OP, ICYMI there’s also a petition on Change.org
www.change.org/p/bbc-reinstate-emily-maitlis

I loathe Cummings but it’s obvious that Maitlis’ statement was born impartial. Loaded terms like ‘blind loyalty’ instead of say ‘unwavering loyalty’ rtc

For people mentioning Andrew Neil, his show has been axed since the start of the start of the Coronavirus too. Journalists, even those from competing channels/media outlets, have said the fact he is not on TV, and therefore not able to hold those in government to account at this critical time, is a crying shame. Remember when Boris refused to come on his show and Neil made a very strong statement saying that he should have come on and been held to account? He was silenced immediately after that.

People who can't see that Maitlis's statement was opinion, not fact, need to give their heads a wobble.

Cummings hasn't been committed of a crime. He has given his version of events. People may have an opinion, but it can't be stated as fact by the supposedly unbiased BBC.

I presume they must have received many complaints from the public to come out with that apology so quickly. I complained.

Oh well it’s been established she did break the rules .she wrote her own speech. She will probably get a little tap on the hand . Meanwhile

Sack him sack him old man pictured in park meeting stranger and ignoring social distancing rules putting both in real danger . Booing and by press to be organised soon"!

Her job is to present the facts not her own opinion, she is a poor presenter with an over inflated sense of her own importance in my opinion

SHE'S NOT A PRESENTER. If you watched 'Newsnight' you would know that. She's a journalist. She interviews the participants live on air.

Yes, quite, SusieOwl4! Along with Stephen Kinnock (since not reprimanded, but promoted by Keir Starmer), that Scottish policeman, and the Scottish MP who told us all he was travelling from London to Scotland in order to protect his wife... and has the brass neck to criticise DC for doing the same.

Newsnight was much better without Maitlis tonight. A bit boring as they kept banging on about the same story but at least the journalists pretended to be unbiased.

Seems she has been benched for tomorrow night as well. 🤞🏻

I loathe Cummings but it’s obvious that Maitlis’ statement was born impartial. Loaded terms like ‘blind loyalty’ instead of say ‘unwavering loyalty’ rtc

Finally, a reasonable argument. This actually sways me.

Scottish MP who told us all he was travelling from London to Scotland in order to protect his wife...

No he didn't. You're all very keen on this MP all of a sudden, though you don't know his name. He travelled home from London. All the MPs who didn't have London constituencies left and he was quite public about it. He tweeted about his journey.

Once home, he isolated, because London was the centre of the pandemic.

No comments on Jeremy corbyn then? If it’s a genuine report I think it’s hilarious.

The BBC isn’t allowed to push out shitty propaganda when its charter requires it to be impartial.

HTH

I hope that all of you who think this government is crap will be personally paying your furlough payments back

I've worked full time throughout, @SusieOwl4. I would love to claim my tax payments back, as I really don't see why I should be subsidising the salaries of idiots with blood on their hands like Johnson and Cummings.

Secondly the media have been extremely biased and asking the same questions over and over again

Asking the same questions over and over again of politicians who are squirming around and lying to try to avoid answering them is not biased, it is exactly what the media is supposed to do.

THe job of the other parties is to challenge the government which is why when we had a weak opposition leader the conservatives got in in the first place. It is NOT the job of the bbc .

It is, you know. Just as it is also their job to challenge the opposition.

The fact that the other labour and snp had actually broken the rules and were not sacked is pretty disgusting

Lots of major differences. They are not the people who made the rules in question. They' did not have coronavirus at the time so the risk was much less. They had the grace too apologise. They did not try to pretend the rules say something different from what they did say, thereby endangering more people by giving rise to the view that the rules can be ignored.

If you check out the rules in place at the time he did not break the law

Of course he did. Road safety laws, for one.

He was not on a jolly

Now, that I do believe. The fact that IDOX has a base in Durham, is run by mates of his, and landed a fat contract for the track and trace option is not coincidental. Nor is the fact the GSK is in Barnard Castle and landed a fat contract for developing a vaccine.

He did not put others at risk because he did not actually mix households

Yes, he did. He had no way of knowing whether his sick wife and four year old child would need to stop at a service area on the way up. He could not guarantee that he would not have an accident or breakdown causing others to need to put themselves in danger to help him.

I am so disappointed with the dual standards of the posters on this site

Look in the mirror.

@theduchessstill the bbc can afford to find pensioners you only have to see what they spend there money on
Like I said if they really want to be independent and say what they like then scrap the licence sooner then better as I have to pay for something I never watch .
But whatever you all say 1 wrongs do not make a right , where do we draw the line .

** 2 wrongs

No comments on Jeremy corbyn then? If it’s a genuine report I think it’s hilarious.

What am I supposed to comment on? His existence? The existence of an undated picture?

Sack him from what? He's a backbencher again. If you want to "sack him", you need to go tell his constituents to vote Tory in 2024. (Which maybe they will.) Knock yourself out.

I wouldn't be advocating sacking even Dominic or Boris for taking selfies with others in the park, so I won't be signing the petition to do whatever to a backbencher, whatever party they're a member of.

I always get the impression Laura K can't stand Boris.

What? She always acts like a total BoJo fan girl.

Her first words "Dominic Cummings broke the rules..." are not factual

Yes they were. He did break it. However, his "reason" for doing so is disputed.

I'd also like to point out the old comment from Christiane Amanpour "I believe in being truthful, not neutral We must stop banalising the truth".

Also, the BBC nowadays bends over so far backwards to be impartial that at times it gives the same weight to what it calls 2 differing opinions when sometimes one is a fact, and the other an opinion.

I was surprised the BBC did anything. She was just following the BBC’s cultural agenda.

she seems to have broken them because she hasn’t represented all points of view.

A fact is a fact. Not a bloody point of view or an opinion.