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Original poster

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

319 replies

NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite · 31/05/2020 08:58

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?

OP posts:
SecretSpAD · 31/05/2020 11:58

I used to be a SpAd. Even if I told you my name, you wouldn't know me. You wouldn't know what I look like, sound like, what ministers I worked for, what I though about them or the government, what my political thoughts are. Now would you know who my family were.

Dominic Cummings thrust himself into the limelight. His wife is a journalist/writer. They put themselves out there to be written about. They are the only ones who put themselves in this position by being hypocrites. This is all just white noise. DC condemned himself with his press conference last week. It doesn't matter if one person for a thousand made something up - he is being judged on his own words and his own actions.

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 31/05/2020 11:59

@FliesandPies

Deliberately destroying someone's life because you can't get them any other way is despicable. Particularly dragging his parents and family into it.

Firstly - The press are reporting what he said. So if his life is destroyed he has done it to himself with his arrogance and stupidity.

Secondly - He dragged his own parents/family into it by putting them at the centre of his excuse.

Yep

Ive said before that its government I’m irritated by...not cummings

But any fallout now is his own fault

Original poster
NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite · 31/05/2020 12:03

"The Government believed resignation was right when Ferguson broke the rules. And this clown continues to detract from dealing with the pandemic."
I think there is a lot of difference between driving somewhere for potential childcare needs where one person is ill and it is feared the other may contract Covid (due to working with someone who tested positive that same day) and meeting up with someone for sex.

OP posts:
vdbfamily · 31/05/2020 12:03

Files .... I was actually reprimanding my cousin for spreading unsubstantiated rumours on SM about the child when he came back to me saying he had actually substantiated it. FWIW, I had no idea who DC was when I watched his interrogation. I could not fault his actions from the interview, however, if the info re planning permission etc is true and illegal then he can get his due come uppance. I am not taking a political stance here at all but the only people I seem to be able to have a rational conversation with about it are those who do not already hate him because of Brexit!

ddl1 · 31/05/2020 12:03

I've never even heard of Tim Matthews to be honest. I judge Cummings on his own, and to some extent his wife's, own words.

JamieLeeCurtains · 31/05/2020 12:03

Mary Wakefield and Dominic Cummings condemned themselves through their own words.

I presume Wakefield was paid for her Spectator article.

I presume Cummings was 'On duty' for his Rose Garden press conference at Downing Street and being paid.

Alsohuman · 31/05/2020 12:10

@PicsInRed

If Dominic Cummings was a Labour advisor, they would be falling over themselves to defend him and support his care for his family. They would rage at the angry, threatening and and politically motivated hounding of his home whilst his wife and 4 year old were inside.

They are raging at him due to Brexit. That's it.

It’s got fuck all to do with Brexit and everything to do with the hypocrisy and arrogance of those who are running the country. There’s no advisor of any political shade who I’d defend on this or the subsequent behaviour which has just put two fingers up to the electorate.
PicsInRed · 31/05/2020 12:11

The media made DC famous with all their raging articles about him after the election.

This was when they started posting photos of him, fixating on his casual attire, and doing articles focusing on him.

He didn't make him famous. Elements of the media chose to make him famous in a burst of narcissistic rage after the record Labour election defeat and Brexit completion.

*I don't even like the guy. I'm just sick of the hypocrisy and obsessive bullshit around this.

Oakmaiden · 31/05/2020 12:15

@NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite

" Your OP is also VERY inaccurate."
Why?

Because you say "Tim Matthews has admitted he made up a sighting of Dominic Cummings at Barnard Castle for a joke." Tim Matthews said he saw him in Durham (he specified somewhere called Riverbanks and somewhere called Houghall Woods - both within the city environs). He was lying joking. It was a stupid thing for him to do, agreed.

Robin Lees saw him at Barnard Castle - this is completely true. DC has admitted as much.

What your garbled post seems to do is cast doubt on the fact of the Barnard Castle visit. It did happen.

FliesandPies · 31/05/2020 12:15

vdbfamily Thing is it is only substantiated to you, not the rest of us and as it blew up on the twitter and then disappeared people are understandably wary of any claims.

Also of course, it makes no difference - many many parents of children with SEN have dealt with the issue in accordance with the instructions given The anger has been generated by the repeated defence of Cummings, instead of a decent apology.

I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say that I was fine about Cummings before this - I loathed him from the minute I found out who he was - but I'm not the one who is guilty of wrongdoing, I'm not the one who has lied and connived and dragged his family down to save his neck. That's all on Cummings.

PerkingFaintly · 31/05/2020 12:15

Absolutely, Rufus.

Cummings' behaviour is one thing.

Ministers falling over themselves to retrospectively pretend the lockdown rules match Cummings' behaviour is quite another. Never mind Gove digging a very deep hole for himself on LBC by insinuating he's done similar.

As even Allison Pearson put it, "the Government has moved from Save Lives to Save Face."
twitter.com/allisonpearson/status/1265329713591070721

It's madness for a government to throw itself on a sword like this for a Spad.

Butterfly44 · 31/05/2020 12:18

Pointless post. No one gives two hoots about second sighting or not. People are angry in his first trip up and outing to the castle

knittingaddict · 31/05/2020 12:20

One of the witnesses lied. The rest didn't. The report that he went back to Durham later would have made it marginally worse that what he had already done and I thought there was always a bit of a question mark over the second siting later in March.

Of course the lying witness is an absolute idiot, but the other reports only came out because the rest of the witnesses were entirely truthful. It changes nothing, but I would like to see the bad witness suffer some consequences.

PerkingFaintly · 31/05/2020 12:20

And if it were only this government destroying itself, and during a less critical time, I could point and laugh at the comeuppance.

But they're risking us as well. This is the government that happened to be in power when a global crisis arose. We NEED them to be competent, and to put our interests first.

It's ghastly to watch them being so shit.

FliesandPies · 31/05/2020 12:21

The media made DC famous with all their raging articles about him after the election.

Oh that's cobblers. 'The Media The Media' - it's so lazy just to blame 'The Media' all the time as if it means something. DC was already well known enough to have been portrayed in a TV prog about Brexit by Benedict Cumberbatch.

He was hugely famous among brexiteers with all their talk of 'Classic Dom' for his use and abuse of...The Media! He was centre-stage as soon as Bozo became PM because it was obvious he was pulling all the strings.

ITonyah · 31/05/2020 12:22

It’s got fuck all to do with Brexit

I respectfully disagree.

NeverTalksToStrangers · 31/05/2020 12:24

@PicsInRed

The media made DC famous with all their raging articles about him after the election.

This was when they started posting photos of him, fixating on his casual attire, and doing articles focusing on him.

He didn't make him famous. Elements of the media chose to make him famous in a burst of narcissistic rage after the record Labour election defeat and Brexit completion.

*I don't even like the guy. I'm just sick of the hypocrisy and obsessive bullshit around this.

Not strictly true. The media focus on cummings started when Boris became prime minister. Cummings was behind the proroguing of parliament and all the other shite that has gone on since. Yes, he was behind the brexit campaign and is disliked for this, but not due to sour grapes on remainers part. His campaign was proven to have broken the law.

So yes, he's a bit of a hate figure. Because of his actions. How many times is this one man going to take the piss out of the law and get away with it?

We were specifically told at the start of the lockdown not to go to second homes because smaller hospitals couldn't cope. For all we know this one man was instrumental in increasing the covid numbers in the Durham area. Given that his wife and child visited a hospital there it is very very possible.

Vomiting WAS a known covid symptom at the time. Maybe not an official symptom, but definitely known. I am pretty sure I had it on 13th March and my boss had been vomiting about 10 days before (yet came to work) so I remember thinking while I was ill that he probably gave it to me.

ITonyah · 31/05/2020 12:25

Secondly - He dragged his own parents/family into it by putting them at the centre of his excuse

I am not interested/enlightened/educated/worried/scared (delete as applicable) by the information that DCs dad might not have had planning permission for the house on his land.

ITonyah · 31/05/2020 12:26

Cummings made no secret of the fact that he didn't like or trust the media. So they wamt to destroy him. See also Meghan Markle.

tabulahrasa · 31/05/2020 12:27

@NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite

"The Government believed resignation was right when Ferguson broke the rules. And this clown continues to detract from dealing with the pandemic." I think there is a lot of difference between driving somewhere for potential childcare needs where one person is ill and it is feared the other may contract Covid (due to working with someone who tested positive that same day) and meeting up with someone for sex.
They are two different things, and they could have made that argument... if cummings and the government hadn’t spent the last week insisting he didn’t break any lockdown guidelines or laws...

If they’d all gone, right ok, yeah, sorry, there was a bit of a breach, but here’s why and we’re ok with that - though in hindsight there were better options.

It would have all been very different.

ky07 · 31/05/2020 12:29

I barely remember anyone mentioning the second trip. The verified trips were enough on their own.

rwalker · 31/05/2020 12:30

Because people HATE the tories they could give bags of gold to the poor and some people would still find fault with that.

NeverTalksToStrangers · 31/05/2020 12:34

@rwalker

Because people HATE the tories they could give bags of gold to the poor and some people would still find fault with that.
I don't think this is true now. If someone gave me a bag of gold in would say something nice about them.

Break the law but say they didn't do it because they have children and are therefore special... not quite the same thing.

Walkaround · 31/05/2020 12:36

ITonyah - DC is a government adviser who gives advice daily to Government on how to manipulate the media and thus public opinion. Of course he hates the media - he knows only too well what it can do, as he has used and abused it to his professional benefit many times before.

FliesandPies · 31/05/2020 12:37

I am not interested/enlightened/educated/worried/scared (delete as applicable) by the information that DCs dad might not have had planning permission for the house on his land

I'm sure you're not but that's too bad because Cummings has placed them at the heart of this story so they are now 'persons of interest' as far as The Media is concerned.