Dominic Cummings using his child's autism as an excuse

[Almahart]

So it looks as if the next excuse to be wheeled out is that Dominic Cumming's child is autistic.

My child is autistic. I know many families with autistic children.

This is what I have heard of happening for these families during Coronavirus:

• no school (yes I know schools should be taking vulnerable children. But many are not)
• no respite
• no transport to school even if they are open
• regular activities cancelled
• the fear that provision provided by local authorities through Education Health and Care Plans and suspended under the Coronavirus Act will slowly disappear

I know of many single parents alone with their child who are seriously struggling and who did not break the rules during lockdown.

To use autism as an excuse is beyond low. It is revolting and has made me even angrier than I was before

Yorkshire post

Dominic Cummings’s almost manic enthusiasm for data science, artificial intelligence and scientific prediction suggests that he wants Whitehall to plunge head first into exploitation of mass public data on everything from health to criminal behaviour, facial recognition and universal benefits.

A digitisation programme driven by the people who worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Vote Leave campaign is unlikely to gain widespread public trust.

Successful transition to digital government will require ministers to carry Parliament and public with them.

Prime minister Boris Johnson and his controversial special advisor, Dominic Cummings, are “secretly” working on a plan to gather citizen data from across Whitehall to be used for targeting communications to people in the run-up to Brexit, according to a report from Buzzfeed News.

Computer Weekly sources have confirmed that Cummings and Number 10 have taken a particular interest in how Gov.uk Verify – the government’s troubled digital identity scheme – could be used to facilitate such a move.

Totally disagree OP. Our child is similar and we have had to break lockdown rules to de-escalate episodes of challenging behaviour and violence. I still got a door slammed in my face and had to glue my head together with steristrips as I didn't want to go to A&E.

When you have a child with SEN you do what it takes, frankly.

I feel sorry for the Cummings. They didn't hurt ANYONE.

He didn't actually wheel out autistic child as an excuse, so he probably isn't. As for they didn't hurt anyone - you don't know that they didn't spread it around County Durham, which before that, hadn't had many cases.

Well we don’t know that they didn’t hurt anyone but they used the NHS in an area with low infection rate after a non essential journey from a highly infected area, and possibly used petrol stations whilst infected on said journey.

So we don’t actually know that they didn’t spread it and hurt someone do we.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/10/no-10-request-user-data-government-website-sparks-alarm

Widespread alarm at the zeal shown by Boris and Cummings in appropriating data from government to use in targeting messages pre Brexit. Possibly in breach of data rules at the time.

Facial recognition
Knowing that he wants to promote that will incentivize lots of us to wear masks outside at all times😷

I bet Europe is pissing its pants at us right now and probably quite glad we've left them

@Growingboys since it seems his covid-suffering wife and covid-exposed child spent a night in a hospital in Durham it’s very possible that they did in fact spread the virus and people could potentially have died as a result.

And that’s if you also believe that he did a 260 mile trip without his 4 year old stopping for a loo break en route.

Mirinska agree. Some of the twitter posts have been lies or misleading. Hence why their are questions around asd.
But there are inaccuracies in your post. No one ever accused him of visiting Castle Barnard. But Barnard Castle - the town. He has admitted himself he went there. He has said they just happened to end up there. As as they got there he just happened to feel sick as they pulled up by the side of the river so they walked along it and say for 15 minutes.

We have to take what Dominic Cummings himself has said.

But we can dispute that if we want.

Plus there have been people saying the press not social distancing didn't help the situation. I haven't yet read or heard anyone defending them on top of each other.

Contact with his family if they were both ill and needed childcare was permitted. People could travel to provide care. His neices could have provided care within the guidelines.

Travelling 260 miles just in case you needed childcare was nowhere in the you MUST stay at home message or guidelines.

@thenamesarealltaken personally I’m not infuriated that DC broke lockdown. I’m not surprised he’s a hypocrite.

What infuriates me is our elected representatives, including our PM, backing him against the face of the evidence and public opinion, which has revealed the extent of the power that this one man has at the heart of our government. That is not right. It shouldn’t happen in a democracy. It is deeply worrying.

They didn't hurt anyone

Apart from the fact we cannot categorically know either way if that's true.

He could have broken down on the way which would have people at risk.
He could have needed to stop at a service station.
They used a hospital so could have taken it there.

Just because in retrospect you didn't cause harm doesn't mean that breaking rules and guidance was fine in the first place.

If you hit someone it's a crime. It isn't only a crime if they were hurt.

@vera99 we don’t actually KNOW if he did or didn’t do those things do we? How do we know if the press are right or if Mr Cummings is right? He wasn’t worried about death threats until the day his wife got ill? He drove to Barnard Castle to test his eyes were working? When his wife could have driven? He drove within the 7 days isolation period to collect wife and child from hospital when he supposedly went to Durham so his nieces and sister could help-so why didn’t he ask them to help? Explain those things to me and maybe I’ll agree with you

A significant number of mostly female MPs have received death threats, and one was murdered 4 years ago, remember. People elected to do a job - not a jumped up SPAD which is all Cummings is at the end of the day. Not that death threats are acceptable, but cut out the crocodile tears for him.

There must be evidence of him driving to hospital, or he would not have mentioned it. I wonder if that's the bit that got added at the last minute and delayed the start. I too wonder why no one else was available to drive the family home from hospital, given that is why they went North, so I can only conclude that there was a need to explain his presence at hospital somehow. It's so shady.

I wish there had been more mum reporters asking questions. What struck me is when I have been so ill so quickly that I sent an SOS for my husband to come home and look after the children, the last thing we’d do is 1. Go back to work and 2. Drive hundreds of miles.

Most mums have experienced a Norovirus bug that rip through the family very quickly. Even if they didn’t think it was Covid but she was so ill, why did he drive as the M1/A1 isn’t really great for D and Vs or suddenly getting very ill.

I also wanted to ask if he would have paid the fine if he was stopped by police for not obeying the government advice.

Quite Zanda - if you get a bug like that, you rush home, get to bed and just about have the energy to stagger to the bathroom. Driving 260 miles is tiring at the best of times.

Yes I think anyone who has cared for a young child (with the exception of those who have servants and nannies) have experienced an occasion when their other half was working or travelling, when they have been struck suddenly by a stomach virus or similar, and have had to sit propped up against the bathroom wall trying to keep a toddler entertained while staying close to the lav. Surely that's normal?

And I appreciate its bad of you feel faint or are fainting but with three of you, you are unlikely to experience the same severity of illness at precisely the same time.

Smart my least proud parenting moment was sitting on the loo, whilst vomiting into a bin whilst ds played in a bath I kept emptying and topping up with water and putting bubble bath into (as soap) for 4.5 hours.

I'm a LP. I didn't even have anyone to call that lived with me to come home.

But I guess if you aren't use to that side of parenting because you've always had nannies or au pairs etc it would seem pretty unusual.

Something you must deal with though if you were meant to be being at home. Because the government told you you MUST stay at home.

It'sgettingwierd that should be remembered as a proud moment for exemplary crisis management

Good points above.

I'm beginning to wonder if the primary driver behind the actions of MW and DC was wanting to get out of London to escape the virus. None of them actually had it, did they?

Or perhaps they simply couldn't cope if their staff had left for some reason.

The vast majority of us of course have to cope, especially if we are lone parents, even if we have difficult, responsible jobs to do and illness descends upon us. Without leaving our primary and usually only residences.

They didn't hurt ANYONE.

Except the government did hurt many people very badly when they supported Cummings and failed to acknowledge the difficult decisions that other people had made because they listened to instructions from the police, doctors and politicians to 'Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and save lives'.

Cummings talked about getting a test and returning to work, so it seems clear that his original plan was to drop his family in Durham, not to stick around and help with childcare.

Yes and as a vicar just said on Sky news, where does it leave us as a society if we all interpret civic laws by "instinct".