Cummings evidence today

[Dirtystreetpie]

Anyone listening?

I think Cummings is nuts.

Place marking because as soon as I got home I searched for a thread.

Disadvantage of working in a classroom is you can't follow and I'm interested in what he said and peoples opinions on it.

I don't trust him though and think whatever was said would have basically been the narrative he wants out there.

We should all know by now there is NOTHING he could say that will make any difference at all to Johnson's popularity.

Brexit is a cult
Johnson is cult leader
Cult leader can do no wrong

Imo this is why Johnson and the Tories are untouchable.

Problem is there’s no decent opposition to Johnson either from within his own party or from across the House.

We have both the worst government and the worst opposition I can recall in my lifetime.

Tragic.

I'm jut wondering who the papers will target / blame over this - as they try and drive opinion?

If Murdoch is a Gove backer who will the Sun and Times go after?

And the NHS does now have a cancer treatment crisis, because of Johnson's uselessness.
Perfect excuse to privatise it then.

What I really wanted to hear more about was what influenced the thinking behind herd immunity as the original plan. There wasn't concrete evidence at that point that it was achievable (i.e. there were reports of people getting covid more than once), also what made them think the resulting high death toll would be acceptable? The general consensus was that children were not affected and that elderly and those with comorbidities were dying, i.e. not the healthy, working population. Long covid wasn't widely known about then.

Some of the (quite horrifying if true) morbid ideas being rumoured at the time were that:
-hospital beds would be freed
-Housing crisis would be solved with the formerly elderly occupied homes now on the market
-pension pot would be healthy as less people about to pay pensions to.
-Hospital waiting lists would be shortened.
There were others but I can't remember all of them.
I wonder if the Government actually thought there would be a net benefit to the economy if the virus was allowed to run rampant through society. Some ministers were certainly quick to line up their cronies to benefit financially.

The evidence is done. What next?

Analysis by political correspondent Joe Pike

After seven hours and seven minutes, Dominic Cummings's evidence to parliament's Health and Science committees is over.

It was a compelling and explosive evidence session which leaves Matt Hancock battered, bruised and fighting for his political survival.

Labour have secured an urgent question on COVID in the Commons tomorrow, meaning the health secretary may have to tackle the allegations head on. Or he could – as he did earlier this week – send a junior minister in his place.

Do your your shirt up msn. Yuk

No one can say he is not an intelligent man. He gained a First at Oxford. He looks uncomfortable and unconvincing. Crackers.

I don't like the weasel after Barnard castle incident, actually his interview after. Everything did change after he did that.

However, I believe him. Id love to see the texts he doesn't want to show about his press conversations. But i think he's being incredibly honest and very candid, what its made me realise is just how much they really were winging it, and how little boris really has been doing.
I find the "I'm not a smart man" act, very manipulative and Id imagine he didnt get his job whilst admitting that.

Jeremy Hunt chairing it as well

@sundowners

Gave up after 30 minutes. So boring. How are we meant to trust anything he says anyway- a man who lied to the nation to such a ridiculous extent and is so consumed by bitterness against his former friend and boss he is pulling out anything he can to try and bring him down? This was a global pandemic the world had never seen before or been prepared for. Yes Boris was slow off the blocks and should ever have gone away on holiday! But our vaccine rollout is one of the worlds best and we are slipping further down - now 17th on the list of deaths per m/population. Celebrate the good too.

And that post sums up exactly why this country is basically fucked.

'After seven hours and seven minutes, Dominic Cummings's evidence to parliament's Health and Science committees is over.'

Is that it?! no hard evidence no witnesses to back up his claims? It's like a kangaroo court. Just his opinions and recollections?

'How are we meant to trust anything he says anyway- a man who lied to the nation to such a ridiculous extent and is so consumed by bitterness against his former friend and boss he is pulling out anything he can to try and bring him down?'

Yes and again, I supported his BC trip for child care but not for security. Surely much easier to have personal protection and secure premises in London. Why did people shouting in the street make him run off but return within a couple of days. He was all over the place with claims and excuses.

@iminthegarden

WHO still denied face-mask efficacy in March!!! Them and global scientists should've been more decisive from the start, govts new very little about what they should've have done at that point. The 2021 wave still hit hard despite an abundance of PPE and ventilators. Made very little difference, the virus is extremely virulent and wouldn't have been stopped in its tracks last year.

Hmm. Vietnam Korea etc shut their borders v smartly in early 2020. They weren't waiting for the WHO. They did all this track and test stuff too.

'How are we meant to trust anything he says anyway- a man who lied to the nation to such a ridiculous extent and is so consumed by bitterness against his former friend and boss he is pulling out anything he can to try and bring him down?'

He’ll have the receipts... people like that save stuff for exactly situations like this.

We shouldn't forget as well that his wife Mary Wakefield also lied about the Barnard Castle incident as she wrote an article about their covid experience in London. Conveniently forgetting to mention they decamped up north.

Whether Johnson has lied or not, whether he's made wrong decisions or not, he showed what an utterly incompetent fool he is to have employed someone like Cummings and given him so much power. They're as bad as each other.

Putting aside the tragedy of this and the worst sin of all in my eyes, the care home debacle, its just mind blowing stuff!

Boris injected by Chris whitty live on TV

Trump wants to start a war, lock down discussions and Carrie going crazy over her dog

Thanks to posters on here I was also looking for ppe in late January early March and already gently starting to stock my cupboards for a lock down.

The pressure they put us under, forcing children to school, the lies snout data, valance etc.

Yes it's sheer mind boggling incompetence but esp on care homes BUT it also shows, we all need to be responsible for ourselves and take care of ourselves. I pulled my dc out a few weeks before the official lock down.

We need to move to being a more self responsive society.

90k+ died this year of COVID.

Mistakes made early on maybe brushed aside - but not for what happened this year.

Interesting to see some of the posters who minimised the Barnard Castle trip now claiming DC is not trustworthy & lacks integrity!

I'd put money on him keeping records - he's fallen out with pretty much everyone he works with (apart from Gove), he'll know how to protect himself and I'd imagine is lawyered up.

@Rejoiningperson

Boris told a few porkies , so what. Because:

• he lied about big things, not what he ate for dinner. Things related to people’s lives.
• because he’s the prime minister. Surely there is someone who can be prime minister who doesn’t lie? We have millions of people in the UK - there must be one.
• because we are still in the pandemic, and apart from vaccinations (which BJs inner government were not managing and did not make all those decisions they credit themselves for) - he is still capable of doing a lot of damage
• because those in government office should be held accountable if they were incompetent, if they lied.

We do pay for these people to run our country. They are beholden to us. It does matter if they are ‘told a few porkies’

I couldn't agree more. But I fear we are in the minority?

we are slipping further down - now 17th on the list of deaths per m/population. Celebrate the good too

Oh good, only the 17th worse country in the world under Johnson's stewardship. Cause for celebration indeed.

If Cummings knew Johnson was a shit show why did he do so much to help inflict him on us as (again) pm in December 19? He can't have just worked it out in March last year?

Of course the pandemic has been a fabulous distraction for the other shit show pushed by Cummings and Johnson that is Brexit.

Fucking wanker!

I don't care one jot about his Barnard castle visit.

And actually, he's one person on that "team" who we know can for full briefs and achieve results, he's a very bright guy and people hate him because he got brexit over the line.

He's not for tory or Labour, and that's why I like him and actually I bet he could have done a better job than most of them. Jeremy hunt seems to have some sort of urgency and air of a doer about him.

I'm not sure which labour minister wouid have done it better though?

JaniieJones is that it?

No, Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the health select committee, says its joint inquiry with the science committee will continue in two weeks' time, when they will be hearing from Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

How many of us on here think Johnson will get his comeuppance on this? In the near future?