Boris is being unfurloughed for tonight's briefing

[ssd]

Should be interesting.

@SimonJT

So why have the press said he only broke the spirit of the rules ?

He did not mix with another household did he ?

He may not have broken the rule that states not mixing with other households, however he DID break the rule that says if you have symptoms you should isolate in your main residence and not travel to an alternative location.

@SusieOwl4 Can you not read the governments own rules regarding covid? Just in case it’s too challenging I’ll pop them on again.

Just written to my MP. Was there no one in London who could give the Cummings family childcare support? A nanny, a childminder? I am incensed.

@lissie123 there is absolutely nothing that would not have been available to him with a single phone call. Nothing

So why have the press said he only broke the spirit of the rules ?

The press are saying that he broke the actual rules.

@Cam77

That’s a ridiculous thing to say .

I have lost 4 members of my family due to the virus .so you trying to score political points quite honestly is very insulting .

The guide also says if you have children basically you do the best you can ( sorry it would not paste)

I can’t stand the guy , but at the moment I can not see he actually put any other household at risk .

@SusieOwl4 and @derxa

These were the guidelines the government issued, and which we were all expected to keep to:

DO NOT LEAVE HOME IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LIVE WITH HAS ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

a high temperature
a new, continuous cough
a loss of, or change to, your sense of smell or taste

That's why it's a problem. Because Dominic Cummings deliberately ignored these.

I am so sorry at what your son is having to deal with TheFairyCaravan. He has my utmost respect, as do all health workers who are having to deal with so much.

The PM's response to this is utterly shameful, they have made obvious their contemptuous attitude. I don't remember being so ashamed of the way we are governed.

So what's now interesting is that instead of this being about DC's integrity, the discussion has become about Boris's integrity. That's quite a risk BJ is taking.

@SusieOwl4 exactly how did he not put any other households at risk? Did he enter service stations in a hazmat suit, or when they were walking around castles etc with someone who had covid. What about when he used the tube when he shouldn’t have left his London home for 14 days due to his wife have covid. Or do all those people not matter? Your family members have been infected by people like him who chose to knowingly spread the virus.

I can’t stand the guy , but at the moment I can not see he actually put any other household at risk

Do you truly think he drove that distance with a 4 year old without a rest stop? And even if he did, (a) why on earth would his 70 year old parents be better carers than in laws around the corner in London, or at a pinch a professional, or otherwise having to manage unless it got terrible, the way others did, and (b) if they'd ended up in hospital in the minimally affected (at the time) Durham area, they would have risked spreading the disease wider in a healthcare setting.

Shameful all round.

First of all, Caesar's wife must be above reproach.

Second, tens of thousands of people have isolated with their children at their primary home because they thought it was the rule. I'm sure many of them would have loved to go to their parents' houses for support, but they didn't, because they were asked to isolate for the common good.

Third, the common good only works as a collective if everyone participates. If someone who is making those rules then acts as if the rules do not apply to him, he is a hypocrite. People hate hypocrites.

I’ve quite a lot of Tory friends and friends who voted Tory last time around (I vote centre left so depends). None of us will vote for a Boris government or any government with Cummings or a Cummings-like figure (unelected figure with so much power). Yes we’ve had it before, but this is almost magnificent gaslighting of the electorate. It is disingenuous at best - and lying, lawbreaking in most of our opinions.

Cummings and Bojo set them guidelines. Cummings broke them repeatedly and in the extreme and then he and the government have turned round saying were in the wrong and making this political.

Since when was law enforcement a political issue?

Cummings has (unfortunately for him) so few allies. He and his family are unpalatable in the extreme. Bojo is really going to go down for Cummings, toodle-do to the lot of them.

The press are saying that he broke the actual rules.

Lawyers are saying that he probably broke the law too.

The main point is that an unelected man who was involved in setting the lockdown rules thought he was too important to need to respect them himself.

Something very rotten at the heart of this government.

I will also say that most political scandals/tropes stick best when they confirm a preexisting narrative.

Richard Nixon was known as Tricky Dicky for years before Watergate.

Zero people were surprised by the rumor that David Cameron had fucked a pig's head as part of posh hazing. The Ed Miliband sandwich image became indelible because people found his man-of-the-people act to be feigned. Emily Thornbury had to resign from the shadow cabinet bc the white van man tweet played into the narrative about leftist snobbery. People believed Andrew Mitchell called policemen plebs because he was an Old Rugbeian and and the ex-chair of the Cambridge U Conservative Association.

This one will stick, I think, because it confirms the following narratives:

1. Government are a bunch of hypocrites.
2. Dominic Cummings is slimy.
3. Boris Johnson thinks the rules don't apply to his cronies.
4. Conservatives put their own interests before the common good.

Now, I'm not endorsing any/all of these narratives. But they exist, and this seems to confirm all of them. I think it'll stick and it'll be a stick for Labour to beat them with.

Moreover, it's very un-English not to fall on your sword about this sort of thing, and I think that will strike people as slightly sinister. So, we'll go with

1. Boris Johnson has skeletons in his closet and is afraid of DC revealing them. (A good conspiracy theory narrative often adds fuel to the fire.)

@SimonJT

You don’t know he stopped anywhere on the journey . ? ?

He went to another house and self isolated ?

His parents put food on his doorstep ? He did not go shopping ?

His child in the end did not need to go to his parents .

In the guidance it says if you have the virus and you have children all the GUIDANCE may not be possible but you must do your best .

To be honest if he has broken the law he would have been best to put up and pay the £100 fine or whatever it was .

I have stuck to the guidance all the way through and I cant stand the guy but sorry I still can’t see he was spreading the virus.

Now if his parents had stepped in to help with child care that is different . But as far as I know they didn’t .

sorry I still can’t see he was spreading the virus.

It doesn't matter whether he did or didn't.

The rules say that if you have symptoms, or have been in close contact with a confirmed case (and BOTH of these were true of Cummings!) you must stay at home.

The rules that Cummings was involved in making, but which do not apply to him? Is that how it works?

Where was it proved he used the tube and after how many days isolated? The first person has to isolate for 7 days ..the second 14

Has that been proven or lies ?

We had someone at work who did not self isolate properly and put us all at risk.

We made them go home but they had not done the 14 days when they came in?

I can’t copy and paste the GUIDANCE

But there is as I said a bit about if you have children ( not the vunerable bit)

But they did not move in with the parents anyway ?

Literally the whole country is angry apart from the Editor of the Telegraph, 80% of Tory MPs, and Susie Owl.

The Goverment is now risking the lockdown and the health of the entire nation to save a man who broke laws he helped to write.

SusieOwl4 you know as much as any of us do, which is a man who sets policy made multiple trips incl unnecessary trips whilst with very sick family. And Mary Wakefield has family in London.

As I said, I now don’t know any Tory voters who would vote for Boris or this cabinet. All age ranges, all backgrounds.

What Bojo is doing is picking so minutely at the rules they guilt-tripped us on. Their statements are haughty and nonsensical. They’ve lost a lot of Tory votes and public trust, trying to rely on tiny caveats to the rules.

I don't remember any bit in the guidance about 'just do your best if you have dependent children'. Where does it say that?

For the avoidance of doubt, I'd feel this way no matter what party was in power. This isn't a party political issues, this is a competence and personal integrity issue. This government has neither.

^ This.