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

Anyway...if you can drive hundreds of miles then you are fine to look after a child which we all know involves a combination of CBeebies and Youtube when both parents are ill.

I emailed my MP about this and in her reply (which said she was getting a lot of emails, lol) she kindly included this linkwww.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do
Which basically says you can’t do what Cummings did.

I would have driven across the country in a heartbeat so he could be with them if I thought I could because seriously ill.

Would you have driven even if you already had symptoms?

The advice is clear

If you have symptoms of coronavirus infection (COVID-19), however mild, do not leave your home for seven days from when your symptoms started.

If you live with others and you or one of them have symptoms of coronavirus, then all other household members must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days.

Link

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do

I think his wife has a sister and brother who live in London. Her brother is an art critic.

Whether or not he will use it as an excuse, it seems strange for others to say “my kid has autism and I stuck to the rules” I’m sure these will be the same people who say “meet one person with autism and you’ve met one person with autism”

His circumstances will be entirely different to your personal circumstances. Just like everyone here is having different circumstances.

He broke the rules, that’s obvious, but second guessing his thought process or suggesting you know what his life is like because you have a child with autism is ridiculous.

It's all a pack of lies. Allegedly DC raced home on the 27th as Mary had become ill. Within 24 hours he, according to Mary 'felt weird' and then 'day in, day out for 10 days he lay doggo with a high fever and spasms...' So when did they travel to Durham or is it a bunch of old hokum?

They're playing us for fools.

They clearly went because they were bored, wanted a change of scenery. get some new Abba music,

He needed emergency childcare the weekend of his mums birthday? How serendipitous.

@NataliaOsipova EXACTLY. Well said. I have friends who live in similar houses with children and very little outside space.

I think you’ll find that is exactly why he went.

Actually, it is two brothers, not a sister.

I don't know what DC life is like. I know what mine is like and I know what the life of many parents who have children with Autism are like (not all, friends, service users).

We have made sacrifices, we have managed someway, somehow just like we always do.

It's one thing to break the rules, it's another entirely to help make the rules and preach the rules...then break them.

Frankly it's insulting.

@wewillmeetagain. Fair enough, but if you do that in the middle of a lockdown, you should expect the fine. Of course, there's also the risk of passing the virus on to your elderly parents knowing that people over 70 are substantially more affected, but I guess that's less important that your need to get them to help you with childcare.

However, If you do that after inventing the rules for everyone else to follow, you damage your credibility and that of the government (at least, according to Steve Baker this morning). I vaguely recall that he was quite pro-Brexit.

I don’t understand this obsession with the rules you have in the U.K.
Maybe he broke them, maybe it was an allowable exception.

To me, it is completely irrelevant to whether he should keep his job.
He’s qualified. He was hired fairly. He does his job to a good standard.

It’s dystopian to force people to resign over such minor infractions (if he did break the rules). No one was harmed.

Now, the Louisville Kentucky Police Chief resigning because their officers stormed the wrong apartment and shot an innocent woman sleeping in her bed to death. That makes sense.

But to have Mr Cummings resign because he had a family issue and the only reasonable way he could balance family and work was to take a few hours drive which could be argued as within the rules or not BUT HIS MANAGER the PM said it was and gave him approval. What more could he have done? If you ask your line manager, can I work such and such hours because of lack of childcare, and the manager approves it as within the “rules” of your employment. Would it then be fair to sack you because work colleagues who find out get all upset about you not working during expected hours? No. It would not be fair.

I say leave the man alone. He made the best decision he could in a difficult time. He had approval from the authority to approve any exceptions- the PM. If anyone is to blame it’s the PM, not Cummings.

I find him a despicable arrogant hypocrite, filmed saying to the gaggle of press outside his home that they should be following the rules and social distancing! Sarcasm at its best or just sheer hypocrisy.

No one was harmed.

Except there's no way to prove he didn't put others at risk of harm. They traveled 260 miles with a symptomatic person.

Everyone is assuming family in London could or would look after the child.
That the sister and nieces who did support him and would be around if his sin needed care could have come south.
The local cousin had just lost her dad

The siblings have lives and jobs

Its indefensible and I'm really looking forward to Keir Starker in full QC mode tearing Boris to shreds over it.

(Every cloud)

plan I am going to spend half an hour later drafting a table taking almost every single statement in your post and responding to them to demonstrate why you’re talking utter crap.

The majority on here hate him purely because he's a Tory and a brexiteer

Thanks for telling me why I think DC is an odious slimeball.

Actually, going around looking like a tramp because he arrogantly believes he doesn't need to make an effort; wearing a lanyard that says "in God we trust, the rest we monitor" (while truly believing he is God) etc etc, contribute significantly to why I think he's an odious slimeball.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Here's a nice paragraph from the Spectator who incidentally employs Mary Wakefield, Cummings' wife:

'It’s not often a politician calls a press conference to sneer openly at the voters but Boris Johnson has always done things his own way. The Prime Minister’s performance this afternoon was a careful, considered declaration of contempt at all those chumps stupid enough to obey the rules he laid down for them. They thought those regulations applied to everyone, regardless of position or connections? What rubes'

That's why people are angry - because there is one rule for people who are influential and important and a completely different rule for everyone else.

This is what did for John Major and Gordon Brown ( back to basics and expenses scandals respectively).

Also meant to say boris won’t sack him because he is afraid of what will come out DC knows all his secrets I bet and is such a loose cannon they won’t dare let him go

Johnson could easily have said," it was ill-judged, it was the wrong call given the sacrifices everyone is making (many making extreme sacrifices) , it was an understandable emotional reaction to private events in the moment and I'm not going to sack him for it".

This.

If Cummings wrote Johnson's speech supporting him last night ( and judging by the way it echoed Cummings own comment, he probably contributed at least), he should be sacked for that alone! It was totally misjudged.

• Starmer bloody autocorrect

My child is autistic, and he's 5. We all had COVID in March. We just had to muddle through.