So was that OK?

[Inoneminute]

I think something along those lines from the outset may have done the trick but now, still with inconsistencies, I'm not so sure.

I especially loved "testing" your eyesight by driving 30 mins with the child, you were so worried about, in the car.

However, for me, the bigger story is the shockingly bad effort Boris made yesterday that lead to that performance being necessary. DC had to step up because the PM wasnt up to the job.

I think DC has probably done enough to survive, but the damage is done to Boris and the party will have him out within a few months.

I still think the public health message is destroyed though.

Pathetic and sneaky as fuck. You invite a bunch of journalists to ask questions and create the distinct impression that you have been ‘ganged up on’ and are worthy of public sympathy.

He should have gone for his botched understanding of the rules alone. But this has not turned into a huge theatre with a purportedly defenceless man at the centre of it.

Utterly ridiculous. How that would convince anyone I have no idea.

Nicky Morgan was interviewed on Radio 4 afterwards and tried to say the as one of the government's top advisor he would have access to and understanding of information that us muggles don't have which would have then allowed him to interpret the rules as he saw fit. You really couldn't make it up.
My comment to DH was that it feels like we are in an episode of The Thick Of It

Boris will remain Prime Minister, Cummings will remain his adviser.

I'm not impressed with what Cummings did BUT it was for family and health reasons.

The whole situation has turned in to a witch hunt. I have relatives (who have been quietly flouting lockdown rules for weeks) calling Cummings all sorts of insults largely because they still haven't got over the GE result. Thought they saw a chance to get him and Boris out, not really about lockdown.

I just want to focus on what will be announced this week regarding schools, social distancing rules, shops etc. The last thing we need now is a change in leadership even if I don't think they've got everything right. Doubt Starmer/Corbyn could realistically have managed a situation such as this much better, who could. And Boris has been seriously ill.

No Boris was so angry yesterday as the press just would not drop it - I bet he turned the air blue back in the office and that Cummings got a bollocking and then told to go sort it himself.

I'm not impressed with what Cummings did BUT it was for family and health reasons.

That’s ok then. Never mind the millions of plebs who have followed guidance to stay home, compromising their family and their health in doing so. His family matter enough for him to flout the rules, but our loved ones can die alone, can be buried without our loved ones present, can worry about infecting vulnerable family members? There are no reasons that justify him flouting the rules that millions of others have followed with all the human cost to them, their health and their families.

@jellycatspyjamas I would follow the rules to protect my family and others regardless of Cummings' actions.

He isn't responsible for this pandemic, no one is. People need to stop directing their anger/frustration/fear/grief at him. Where does it stop otherwise? He and his family are physically attacked?

He's made everyone question the rules. People have been kicked out for less. He's literally doing what he wants, undermining everything so far.

After today's announcement, all I can think of is how they're probably mixing their own social bubbles anyway.

It wasnt for family and health reasons and anyone who believes that steaming pile of horse shit should pop out and buy a tin of elbow grease.

This is a guy who helped to write the guidelines, he know what he was allowed to do, yet he didn't even think about finding local childcare, like his nanny who he would have know was still ok to work in the house, or the several family members in his locality. Really?

instead of just having his wife drive or using a car service, or getting a train, once he was symptom free, he decided to load his family in the car for a 30 mile drive to a tourist destination, on his wife's birthday to check his eyesight. Really?

His 4yr old announces on a drive that he needs a wee, fair enough, we've all been there. In lockdown, do you a) run him out to do a very quick wee up a tree leaving the other adult in the car, b) all get out of the car and have a bit of a play for a while in a beauty spot? They picked B

He said in that speech that his son got sick and ended up in hospital overnight, and that's why he was out driving that day.

His wife said he was in bed for 10 days solid and his son was playing doctor and making a polystyrene train set. So if he was in bed at deaths door, how was he driving to the hospital?

spectator.us/getting-coronavirus-bring-clarity/

His wife also made it seem they were in London for the duration, but hey ho, a family of liars sounds about right.

There's absolutely no excuse for the trip to Barnard Castle, it's 30 miles in the opposite direction- if he was staying around Durham itself that Barnard Castle is 30 miles in the opposite direction away from London.
I wish the press would stop calling it Castle Barnard..it's really pissing off the locals! Almost as much as him coming up here in the first place.

He isn't responsible for this pandemic, no one is.

Of course he’s not responsible for the pandemic, he is however wholly responsible for his actions, which went against every public health message at the time, guidance that he had a hand in writing. Guidance that said people can’t access childcare, can’t go to work, need to self isolate, can’t travel to second homes. He’s entirely responsible for deciding that his circumstances were exceptional when in fact they were the same circumstances parents up and down the country have faced. Measured by his own rules and public health messages, that the rest of the country are expected to abide by, he was wrong.

Hi suggestion that people are angry because they’ve listened to popular media and just don’t understand is patronising at best.

The press conference was like a shitty AIBU thread:-

OP “this is what happened, I’m not being unreasonable”
Rest of MN “yes you are being utterly unreasonable”
OP “no I’m not, you just don’t understand”
MN. “Yes we do understand, you’re unreasonable“
Etc
Etc