Dominic Cummings travelled from London to Durham to self isolate

[chomalungma]

Seen running out of Downing Street
Went to self isolate with his wife in Durham with his parents when he had symptoms
Seems he had his family with him
He stayed with his wife and his parents looked after the children

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52779356

One rule for us, one rule for him

Balls to them all. We've bust a gut over the last 10 weeks, as have many but this is the final straw.

I feel like this too. But you know, I wonder if the timing of this story is so that we will all think this, the lockdown will no longer be adhered to and the government can blame the people for wahtever comes next.

Now, where did I put my tinfoil hat.

It does increasingly feel that history books will describe the government leadership through coronovirus as an escalating, tragic farce.

You could almost think the incumbents have already decided to lose the next election and leave the mopping up to someone else.

I am more interested in the Twitter side-story. Can someone offer an entirely benign reason /technical explanation why Dominic has not trended on Twitter?

If my child was very ill I would travel to them and stay with them in lockdown until they recovered. If it had been that way for Cummings, I don't believe he would be condemned - everyone would be more understanding of a parent traveling to look after their sick son, even if it was technically against the law. A healthy parent wouldn't be exposing people at petrol stations etc to Covid.
But he can't have been feeling that bad if he was able to drive. It's the levels of lies and utter contempt for the rest of the the population and not giving a shit who he infected on the way up or when living with his parents, that makes this so unforgivable.

He’s the top trend on my twitter feed

What I can’t get my head around is that the government (I assume with Cummings very much part of the decision making) got rid of Prof Neil Ferguson, weeks after he broke lockdown, so storing up that story for a while.

I think they got rid of him because he was one of the much more conservative (and very outspoken) views on the SAGE committee and this didn’t fit with the plan to ease lockdown.

Yet they would also have known at that time what Cummings did and surely also the risk that the public would expect Cummings to resign.

Johnson hasn’t a clue what he’s doing without Cummings, but now he has to go. Johnson will go down as the worst PM in British history, the “leader” who utterly failed the country in a massive crisis (a conservative estimate of 63,600 dead now, FT figures). And the man who made Farage look legitimate - delivering Brexit, destroying the union, and hampering the economy for decades. Quite a role call of achievements which will hopefully satisfy his endless need for attention as he takes retirement in a few months.

Ooh I wonder what Boris will do to get this brushed under the carpet. Fall off his bike? Another pregnancy announcement? Announce schools are going back on Tuesday?

Cummings is a nasty little man, but I doubt he’ll be gone, he must know far too much.

hes not on mine at all - dominicgoings is there but not his name as you'd expect. even his wifes name is trending but not his.

Kit19

The twittersphere has had to create #dominicgoings but it looks like its a benign but inexact potty-mouth filter that is the root cause..

Just encouraging to know that there is still a limit to how much the media is being manipulated/nuanced/controlled. All good.

Hmmmm hadn’t clocked that! Yes then I do wonder how that’s the case

If he needed childcare, surely someone could have come to his house in London to collect the child?

I get childcare is hard - I am sure everyone on this thread has thought what would happen if they were ill with children.

But driving 250 miles

According to LK on twitter

"Few more details this morning -
-small number of people in No 10 knew that Cummings had gone to Durham, not stayed in London -seems it was his sister who had offered to help with childcare when he and his wife fell ill
-family stayed in separate house + had no contact in the end"

Spinning like a top.

It's interesting that this is now the top story, and there's very little on Johnson's inappropriate behaviour with Jennifer Arcuri.

After all, even if Cummings resigns, he's still going to be in power.

and the piece his wife wrote in the spectator about how poorly he was at home for ten days...

lies. again.

Boris will just hide it out! And yes I mean hide not ride!! I'm disgusted! I'm outraged for all those who've had a really rough time during all this. I've been privileged DH wfh, kids ok etc but I'm so very well aware that many haven't been ok and some never will be and then we hear that Cummings the prize t*at did exactly what 90% of us didn't do because we were told that for the good of the uk population and the country as a whole we needed to stay at home!! Go get him Starmer - please!!!

It's maddening. All I can think of is some of the single parents on here who were suffering at home ill and alone with their child/children not daring to call upon their own parent(s) or even friends because we were explicitly instructed to stay at home and not to mix households.

He's in office but not in power.

He's in office but not in power

The puppet master in Downing Street

dominic cummings and boris - one law for the rich...

i dunno why he didnt go to his father in laws -now hes got a tidy little shack there.

BBC just said he came down with the illness the day after he drove them all up there. Still infectious then at the petrol stations etc.
What sickens me is the way his wife took to the airwaves to describe her experience of the illness and how kind he was. Omitting their location and journey there and all the lives they may have claimed on the way.
One rule for them and another for us. “Too bad” for the weak ones in the herd. 🤬

As a single parent, my DC have had to look after themselves a few times when I was too ill to get out of bed. I made an emergency plan for what to do if I got Covid 19. It never crossed my mind to include travelling and letting the DC be looked after by my parents.

Gosh BBC Breakfast are really trying to spin this as not being that bad , on the basis that there is flexibility for the care of children. WTAF! So many families are struggling with childcare. Why is he a special case.

This is so depressing. I feel really angry with our government and this is the icing on the cake.

@fortyfifty exactly.

BBC have probably been threatened with a total boycott by government ministers or some such if they don’t downplay the story.

DC resigning from whatever role he has won't in any way limit his influence with the PM, it may even liberate him. He needs to be sacked, and be seen to be sacked, not allowed to resign. Following that sacking, all contact between him and the govt should be severed. None of this will happen.