Why aren't there angry posts about Tim Matthews admitting he made up Dominic Cummings sighting?

[NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372911/Boris-puts-Dominic-Cummings-chance-one-witness-admits-sighting-aide.html

Tim Matthews has admitted he made up a sighting of Dominic Cummings at Barnard Castle for a joke. It wasn't a very funny joke. I haven't heard anyone laughing about and why has it taken until now to admit it was a lie?

Why discount the puerile joke reason? Why jump to conspiracy? Yes, a puerile joke to get involved in the rumpus and make Cummings look worse. Although as it turned out Cummings didn't need any help to make himself look worse and the rumours about other visits were made redundant by the account given by the idiot himself.

I find Samphire's posting highly disengenuous, turning up on threads criticising Tory party or Cummings to try to derail the discussion, while claiming not to be a Tory supporter, and always seem to end up with Samphire claiming to be misunderstood.

Oh! You mean I disagree with you

Why discount the puerile joke reason?

Because I'd find it really depressing to think that someone would do this genuinely believing it was funny. Because on this occasion the puerile joke could have had major repercussions. If DC hadn't given the press conference and one 'witness' had been found to lie the whole story could have been discredited by the actions of one tosser.

I don't believe the conspiracy theory, I personally think TM did it to make DC look worse for some reason (didn't he go to the trouble of trying to alter his running tracker to back him up?) but I do believe it gives DC supporters the opportunity to claim it's all a witch hunt and that makes me furious.

Cummings' supporters will always claim some such bullshit Waspnest no matter what other evidence there is. The fact that the OP started the thread in attempt to whip up outrage against Matthews, but failed, shows that his silly lie didn't make any difference to the conclusion on Cummings.

Well we'll have to disagree. I think the Tim Matthews issue is serious not just a silly lie and I don't know why people aren't more annoyed about it. But this is MN and I find a lot of the attitudes on here a bit weird these days, probably me getting old and jaded.

The fact that the OP started the thread in attempt to whip up outrage against Matthews, but failed, shows that his silly lie didn't make any difference to the conclusion on Cummings.

Good to know you don’t see any moral problem with lying...

Fair enough Waspnest I can see it's important to you even if I don't understand why. I would point out though that Matthews has stated that what he did was wrong and apologised. That's a lot more than the dreadful Cummings has managed.

Erm, because DC himself said he drove to Barnard Castle?
Never heard of Tim Matthews. Don’t read Daily Mail.

I think the Tim Matthews issue is serious not just a silly lie and I don't know why people aren't more annoyed about it.

Because it did not influence attitudes towards Cummings, and Cummings had plenty of opportunity to offer a correction.

I find it odd that you can't see this.

I think the Tim Matthews issue is serious not just a silly lie and I don't know why people aren't more annoyed about it

It is annoying - because it gave Johnson some room to say that the reporting was false - even though the key elements of the story were correct.

The initial response to the 2 sightings (of which one was confirmed to be true) was:

"They added: "Today they are writing more inaccurate stories including claims that Mr Cummings returned to Durham after returning to work in Downing Street on 14 April. We will not waste our time answering a stream of false allegations about Mr Cummings from campaigning newspapers"

So there was a true allegation that he had gone to Barnard Castle -and a false one that he returned.

That was the wrong response - if they had said that he had gone to Barnard Castle but refuted the 2nd one, that could have taken the sting out of the tail.

But they didn't

Of course Cummings could have lied to Boris and said that none of the 2 allegations were true - until the evidence came out

Mathews should be charged with wasting Police time, same as anyone who makes up stuff.

However, DC admitted he drove to Barnard Castle to check on his ability to drive.

The article made me laugh though "remainer and left wing plot" Yes, i'm sure arch ERG member Steve Baker ticks all those boxes when he called for Cummings to go!

Mathews should be charged with wasting Police time, same as anyone who makes up stuff

Do you think the police investigated this 2nd sighting?
Or did Matthews admit it was made up before this happened.

Should people be allowed to make up allegations of criminal behaviour for fun, according to you?

Should people be allowed to make up allegations of criminal behaviour for fun, according to you

No, they shouldn't

That applies to anyone who makes something up that smears someone's character that is false.

Should people be allowed to make up allegations of criminal behaviour for fun, according to you?

There are laws that protect people from defamation, but Cummings didn't suffer from the allegation (his reputation was damaged by the things he admitted to, particularly the 'eye sight test'), and he was given many opportunities to correct the report before publication.

I also wonder if the police investigated Dominic Cumming's trip to Barnard Castle - which he denied.

Can he be charged with wasting police time if they investigated something that he later admitted was true?

I also wonder if the police investigated Dominic Cumming's trip to Barnard Castle

They investigated and said that what he did was wrong, but that they would just have asked him to go home if they had come across him.

I think this is in line with how many other people were treated.

They investigated and said that what he did was wrong, but that they would just have asked him to go home if they had come across him

What I mean is - did they check using CCTV etc to confirm that he had been to Barnard Castle - because Downing Street initially refused to comment on the allegations - or did Cummings confirm that he had been to Barnard Castle - so they wouldn't have had to go to the effort of seeing if the allegations were true?

did they check using CCTV etc to confirm that he had been to Barnard Castle

I don't know, but I'm assume that they didn't investigate.

I know for instance that my ILs (who live in a part of the UK where stricter rules were enforced) were told by police to go home because they had driven to a carpark to look at the sea.

However, I doubt that they would have been investigated by the police if somebody had reported their trip.

Durham Police had to waste at least a couple of days of their time having an investigation into their dealings with Cummings in order to conclude that he hadn't broken the law by travelling to Durham. Even though we all know he broke the regulations - in spirit and in fact - which was the point of the outcry.

Oh and arf at the pooper-poster trying to take the moral high ground. Do me a favour!

FliesandPies

It must be uncomfortable for the supposedly virtuous to have their hypocrisy exposed, I’m sure.

That’s also probably why the Cummings-chasers haven’t said a word about Barry Gardiner breaking lockdown to join a mass political protest of thousands of people that would be an ideal super-spreader event!

Because they’re silly little hypocrites!

I find it odd that you can't see this.

And I find it odd that you can't see the bigger picture here. Take Cummings out of the equation. Say there were two neighbours, one goes to the police and says that his neighbour has been regularly having family parties at his house at the height of lockdown and he has cctv footage showing loads of people traipsing into the house. Turns out the neighbour has used old footage and tried to alter the date to incriminate neighbour. When this comes out the dodgy neighbour says it was all a joke and he didn't mean to get anyone into trouble.

Would anyone here really think okay that's fine, no harm done, move along, nothing to see here? No, you'd be thinking who the fuck would do that, was there some kind of grudge about a parking issue, he's fed up of the neighbours playing loud music at night, has he got mental health issues. But because it was aimed at the odious little creep Dominic Cummings apparently it's ok?

It’s not OK. Saying it isn’t OK doesn’t exonerate Cummings. Nor does whataboutery with regard to MPs who visited their parents or took part in the Black Lives Matter demonstration. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

I think that's the problem Alsohuman. A lot of people on here DO seem to think that saying it isn't ok does exonerate Cummings. (I think that makes sense) when clearly it doesn't.