The UK response to Covid-19 [MOD WARNING 1ST POST]

Joe_ Public

They're probably just playing with words. Downing St statement just says police didnt speak to Cummings or his family which means just him or his wife and kid. But could have spoke to his parents or sister. That's how I'd interpret it.

It's all a bit distracting but it's going to dominate todays briefing anyway. I'd like to know did sister self isolate? Why was Cummings playing with his kid if he was infected? Why did wife write he was in bed "doggo" if he was out in garden with the kid? Etc etc

It is very damaging. Been a bad week for them.

devnull

There's now talk that Cummings wife had coronavirus but he didn't, whereas yesterday they both had symptoms.

Truth, strange bedfellows etc.

Joe_ Public

Harry Palmr wrote: »

On the other hand

https://twitter.com/helenpidd/status/1264139082516570112

It's no secret that rank and file tory mps dont like him. He regularly berates and mocks them in meetings. I remember that bit in the Cumberbatch film where he basically calls Daniel Hannan stupid to his face. But i bet they're all afraid of him too and Cummings will be laughing when he reads that stuff.

Enzokk

Joe_ Public wrote: »

They're probably just playing with words. Downing St statement just says police didnt speak to Cummings or his family which means just him or his wife and kid. But could have spoke to his parents or sister. That's how I'd interpret it.

It's all a bit distracting but it's going to dominate todays briefing anyway. I'd like to know did sister self isolate? Why was Cummings playing with his kid if he was infected? Why did wife write he was in bed "doggo" if he was out in garden with the kid? Etc etc

It is very damaging. Been a bad week for them.

Your parents aren't part of your family? If they try that excuse they are stupider than anyone thought.

devnull wrote: »

There's now talk that Cummings wife had coronavirus but he didn't, whereas yesterday they both had symptoms.

Truth, strange bedfellows etc.

She wrote how sick he was and how he was struggling to breathe. Now he was sick with another disease at the same time that wasn't coronavirus that also attacks your lungs? And that people he was around was confirmed with coronavirus but he got sick with another disease? Or wasn't he sick at all and she made it up?

You are right, the truth to this lot is a strange bedfellow.

Joe_ Public

Enzokk wrote: »

Your parents aren't part of your family? If they try that excuse they are stupider than anyone thought.

I dunno, how else can it be interpreted, other than police must be lying or mistaken? In the statement they refer to "extended family" and then that the sister did the shopping for "the family" so i can sort of see some distinction being drawn there but maybe that's reading too much into it and we should just safely conclude they are brazenly and blatantly lying.

Enzokk

This seems to be an apt reply to Rishi Sunak and his comment on this whole affair,

https://twitter.com/Sathnam/status/1264146361588514816?s=20

Mushy

Should he resign? Yes
Will he? No

Should he be sacked? Yes
Will he be? No

Boris with zero credibility is losing even more credibility, all the while demeaning the police force at the same time. A shameful shower of humans in power there

A Dub in Glasgo

Cummings should be sacked for breaking quarantine and Johnson should resign for the cover up

devnull

Cummings has just been doorstepped:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-dominic-cummings-says-260-mile-trip-during-lockdown-was-right-thing-11993298

Dominic Cummings has insisted "I behaved reasonably and legally" after it was revealed he travelled 260 miles from London to Durham during lockdown.

When asked by reporters if his trip looked good, he said: "Who cares about good looks? It's a question of doing the right thing. It's not about what you guys [the media] think."

The PM's top aide also told off reporters for not social distancing, telling them: "You're supposed to be more than two metres apart - move out of the way."

His arrogance knows no bounds, his comments suggest that it's going to be painted as a media created storm.

Acosta

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

Cummings should be sacked for breaking quarantine and Johnson should resign for the cover up

Compared to Ireland I always liked how UK politicians were generally held to account when someone messed up. Blame was always assigned and quickly followed by a resignation. This was of course UK politics in the pre summer 2016 world. In this world the Cummings thing wouldn't even matter as he would already be gone as Johnson would already have resigned or have been forced out due to his catastrophic mishandling of this crisis.

As for Laura Kuenssberg and bbc..That Cummings has managed to convince all these Brexit zealots that the bbc is the enemy is 1984 stuff.

Dave0301

devnull wrote: »

His arrogance knows no bounds, his comments suggest that it's going to be painted as a media created storm.

His stance is the epitome of one rule for me and another rule for everyone else.

The article by his wife in the spectator compounds the issue as well.

A Dub in Glasgo

It is important to note that this is not a breach of lockdown, Cummings had symptoms and it is a breach of quarantine

beggars_bush

Spin spin spin

robinph

"Who cares about good looks?"

The Scottish CMO who put nobody else at risk and didn't interact with any other households, yet resigned because of "good looks" and needing to be seen to do the right thing.

A Dub in Glasgo

robinph wrote: »

"Who cares about good looks?"

The Scottish CMO who put nobody else at risk and didn't interact with any other households, yet resigned because of "good looks" and needing to be seen to do the right thing.

To be fair, she was hounded mercilessly by the press and what she did was no where near as reckless as what Cummings has done

robinph

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

To be fair, she was hounded mercilessly by the press and what she did was no where near as reckless as what Cummings has done

Hopefully the press keeps the pressure on with this.

Despite BBC lunchtime news leading with the story, they didn't seem to be actually focusing on it quite as much as you'd expect and switched to talking about something else just as soon as they thought they had given it enough token coverage.

nacho libre

Boris will definitely want his cheerleaders back for the next PMQ session.
Unless a vaccine is approved, i don't see this story going away anytime soon. If this causes Boris's poll ratings to slump, he might just decide Cummings has to go

Joe_ Public

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

To be fair, she was hounded mercilessly by the press and what she did was no where near as reckless as what Cummings has done

I dunno, she did it twice and spent a day at the beach with her family, at a time she was spearheading an ad campaign to stay at home. Cummings might be worse but the real distinction I'd draw is she appeared to be very well respected and to be doing a good job while Cummings has indisputably been a pernicious influence when it came to the uk's virus strategy. If there was any small basis to cut somebody some slack at such a time, it would be her, not a sinister spin merchant like him.

dfx-

Enzokk wrote: »

The tweets of support has started.

For a Special Advisor to another office, it's something to see the Chancellor, Health Secretary and Foreign Secretary rushing to not only comment but defend him. The main figures at the recent podiums.

Do they comment on controversy and speculation as a rule...?

Edit: and Home Secretary and Gove. A cabinet full house, almost a concerted effort and contradicting Durham Police.

BonnieSituation

Leroy42 wrote: »

...they have just accepted that their testing numbers include significant double counting,

Can you throw up a link there?

I would be interested to discuss this in as much detail as hitting the fabled "100,000 tests a day" target was.

I'm sure many here would be interested in throwing a critical eye over it given how happy they were with the target being "reached" that one day last month.

Will that make them determined to ride this out or will they ditch him to try to stem the bad press? My money would be on riding it out.

He absolutely won't resign. Resigning is what others do, not BoJo Tories.

Leroy42

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Can you throw up a link there?

Here is one link (btw I am not saying this is the best link but I am heading out and this is the quickest I could find). But look for the press conference.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/22/thousands-coronavirus-tests-are-double-counted-officials-admit-12742017/

Enzokk

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Can you throw up a link there?

I would be interested to discuss this in as much detail as hitting the fabled "100,000 tests a day" target was.

I'm sure many here would be interested in throwing a critical eye over it given how happy they were with the target being "reached" that one day last month.



He absolutely won't resign. Resigning is what others do, not BoJo Tories.

Here is another link for the double counting. It is mostly in the pillar 1 of testing it seems of their daily numbers as I understand it.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/tens-thousands-coronavirus-tests-have-double-counted-officials/

It is tests in hospital done by PHE. You could ignore the pillar 4 test numbers everyday as well as they are for research purposes and not diagnosis for the public. They will not count towards the test and track program basically I think.

Enzokk

dfx- wrote: »

For a Special Advisor to another office, it's something to see the Chancellor, Health Secretary and Foreign Secretary rushing to not only comment but defend him. The main figures at the recent podiums.

Do they comment on controversy and speculation as a rule...?

Edit: and Home Secretary and Gove. A cabinet full house, almost a concerted effort and contradicting Durham Police.

Suella Braverman also tweeted her support for him so you can add the Attorney General as well.

https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1264174355975671810?s=20

Joe_ Public

Surely the rule now needs to be altered asap to take account of this protecting your kids angle. How many people previously might have taken alternative courses of action had they known this interpretation existed? Clarification should be sought on this at the earliest.

Professor Moriarty

Enzokk wrote: »

Suella Braverman also tweeted her support for him so you can add the Attorney General as well.

https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1264174355975671810?s=20

When you're explaining, you're losing.

robinph

Enzokk wrote: »

Suella Braverman also tweeted her support for him so you can add the Attorney General as well.

https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1264174355975671810?s=20

Protecting your family is keeping your infected household away from their households.

Shelga

Enzokk wrote: »

Suella Braverman also tweeted her support for him so you can add the Attorney General as well.

https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1264174355975671810?s=20

Oh god, I forgot this absolute moron is the frigging Attorney General. It's so laughable. So she says "Protecting one's family is what any good parent does"- how is Cummings protecting his presumably elderly parents by launching his entire coronavirus-ridden family on them?!

This is what I don't get. He obviously thinks the rules don't apply to him as he doesn't consider himself a pleb, but does he not care about passing on a potentially deadly virus to his parents, who are in the most at-risk category? And if all he was doing was holing up in a separate property on their estate ("fighting back against the elites" my hole) and not having them look after his child in any meaningful way, then what was the point of driving 270 miles?!

Enzokk

The story just keeps getting better. His partner has a brother an he lives in London.

https://twitter.com/EmmaKennedy/status/1264168456653594624?s=20

Who is on press briefing duties today? What are the chances of technical problems preventing questions from the press this afternoon?

Joe_ Public

Grant Schapps drew the short straw today. When in doubt, send your most hapless of hapless mugs out.

Joe_ Public

Just a gentle reminder from labour in case Shapps needs his memory jogged.

https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/1264205845967052800?s=20

Enzokk

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Just a gentle reminder from labour in case Shapps needs his memory jogged.

https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/1264205845967052800?s=20

Labour Press has been good, here is another example,

https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/1264196436733964288?s=20


This is smart, don't jump around demanding he be fired. Leave that to the press but just keep throwing them crumbs to keep the fire going.


As for the Tory response, well the heavy hitters have been out to support Cummings but they want a little more from the others it seems.

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1264204154089680899?s=20

Enzokk

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Grant Schapps drew the short straw today. When in doubt, send your most hapless of hapless mugs out.

Ah, Michael Green. When confronted with a story of lies and deception, well send someone who fits in I suppose,

Grant Shapps admits he had second job as 'millionaire web marketer' while MP

Grant Shapps, the Tory party chairman, had a second job as a “multimillion-dollar web marketer” under the pseudonym Michael Green for at least year after he first became an MP.

It is a suggestion that Shapps has repeatedly denied for three years, but the Guardian has discovered a recording from the summer of 2006 in which the Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield boasts his products could make listeners a “ton of cash by Christmas”.

This is an old article. He denied that this Michael Green was him until he was confronted by a recording,

But since 2012 when pictures emerged of Shapps in 2004 at a $3,000-a-head US internet conference where he was photographed wearing a badge describing himself as “Michael Green” the MP consistently defended himself saying he had stopped being Green after he took his seat in the Commons.

When confronted with the audio, which shows he was still operating as Green over a year after the 2005 general election, a Tory party spokesman said that Shapps now conceded “his writing career [as Green]... ended shortly after [becoming an MP].”

Prior to this concession Shapps had gone to extraordinary lengths to insist he had never been Michael Green after being elected in May 2005.

Last November the Tory party chairman used legal threats to force a local constituent and ex-Labour councillor to delete an allegedly libellous post on a Facebook group about his use of the pseudonym and replace it with an apology that explicitly states that he was not using the Michael Green pseudonym when he was an MP.

In papers seen by the Guardian, Shapp’s lawyers wrote to the constituent noting “your agreement to post an apology requires you (to) make a ‘new’ post (ie a post on the ‘homepage’ of the group, and not a comment on another post)”.

The lawyers state that the Tory chairman requires the apology to read: “Mr Shapps MP has at no time misled over the use of a pen name. Indeed, I now understand that he openly published his full name alongside business publications making it clear that he used a pen name merely to separate business and politics, prior to entering parliament.”

lainey_d_123

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

It is important to note that this is not a breach of lockdown, Cummings had symptoms and it is a breach of quarantine

It's absolutely appalling behaviour. The c*nt should be charged and fined or imprisoned, never mind lose his job.

Can you imagine being so arrogant that you so brazenly flout the rules everyone else has to follow because you think you're special? Having symptoms of coronavirus and travelling across the country to vulnerable people? How on earth is he getting away with this?

Enzokk

The Guardian had this story on the 5th April that he travelled to Durham. Downing Street repeatedly declined to comment on the story. If it is such a non-story according to almost all the big cabinet ministers, why decline to comment on it? Surely you come out on the day and state he travelled to ensure his child has someone to look after, so why keep quiet?

Lockdown row: key points Cummings and Johnson must address

The Guardian first asked Downing Street on 5 April about whether Dominic Cummings had travelled to County Durham during the height of the lockdown. The response was: “It will be a no comment on that one.”

Over the last seven weeks, neither Cummings nor No 10 have wanted to provide any on-the-record explanation about his whereabouts.

robinph

I'm anticipating a short new conference today.

Some technical difficulty about to happen and cut them off...

Dave0301

Grant Shaps has been thrown out there today as the sacrificial lamb.

fr336

Weren't police on Isle of Wight arresting people who broke quarantine and therefore spread the virus?

S.M.B.

It's pretty bad that they're happy to go out of their way to justify Cummings actions potentially damaging the publics willingness to adhere to the rules. Shows how much power Cummings has.

Completely normalising his actions.

We can now travel the length of the country to be closer to extended family even with a symptomatic household member in case a child needs extra care for safeguarding purposes. It's common sense and we'd all do similarly.

fr336

Dave0301 wrote: »

Grant Shaps has been thrown out there today as the sacrificial lamb.

Can't blame them, if I was the government Grant would be first on my list for this.

BonnieSituation

David Woodings of The Sun on Sunday going for the jugular with Grant Schapps.

"What's the difference between others resigning (Ferguson and ScotCMO) and Cummings?

There were of course technical differences behind their reasons in all 3 cases. But they all broke the rules. So they should all face the consequences.

Joe_ Public

Shapps made sure not to inform himself of any more details than were out there. Useless patsy is genuinely clueless. Listening to Jenny Harries would rob you of the will to live.

Enzokk

This is ridiculous, Shapps keeps trying to paint this as some severe situation that was unprecedented and not faced by others. People couldn't visit dying family members because they had to stay at home. There was nothing wrong with Cummings at the time and he broke the quarantine guidance. Or he was sick already and should have stayed put.

Harries didn't want to get involved but kept saying you had to get yourself in isolation if there was a suspected case of Covid-19 in the family.

robinph

Loved one of the answers being "Why won't anyone ask me about the A66?".

devnull

Just saw this pop up on Sky News Live updates

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was asked if Prime Minister Boris Johnson knew about about Dominic Cummings' actions and had approved them.

Mr Shapps said: "The important thing is that everyone remains in the same place whilst they are on lockdown which is exactly what happened in I think the case you're referring to with Mr Cummings.

"The prime minister will have known he was staying put and he didn't come out again until he was feeling better."

Shapps has really just said that the important think is that people remain in the same place when they are on lockdown? Does he know what 'same place' means or does he need to go back to school? I did not know that London and Durham were two terms for the same place, but I guess you learn something every day.

Alternatively they could all be pathological spinners and liars, so much so in this case it appears that Shapps has got so carried away in the spin that he has forgot what actually happened and what same place means.

Also it suggests that Johnson knew something about it, hence the avoidance of answering the question.

Professor Moriarty

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Just a gentle reminder from labour in case Shapps needs his memory jogged.

https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/1264205845967052800?s=20

Oooops!

Enzokk

Press briefing is over and Shapps just changed the government advice on the fly to protect Cummings.

https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1264217876732317697?s=20

https://twitter.com/jessbrammar/status/1264217644384817159?s=20

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1264218078184964102?s=20

I think this briefing made things worse. Now the government advice is open for interpretation and if there is a second lockdown then there is no real need to follow government advice.

Professor Moriarty

Enzokk wrote: »

Press briefing is over and Shapps just changed the government advice on the fly to protect Cummings.

https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1264217876732317697?s=20

https://twitter.com/jessbrammar/status/1264217644384817159?s=20

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1264218078184964102?s=20

I think this briefing made things worse. Now the government advice is open for interpretation and if there is a second lockdown then there is no real need to follow government advice.

They're just making themselves look even more incompetent and deceitful. This disingenuous spin to protect the elite is the epitome of autocratic governance.

hotmail.com

He may resign later tonight after the Sunday papers have gone to print.

Joe_ Public

As per Sam Coates the phrase "pre-emptive action" was lobbed in there somewhere (by Harries i think) which seems to suggest it was ok to bend the rules to protect a vulnerable person, not simply if you were getting syptoms but if you thought you MIGHT get them. That's some leap of the imagination right there.

Joe_ Public

hotmail.com wrote: »

He may resign later tonight after the Sunday papers have gone to print.

I'll believe it when i see it. But labour are definitely going for it and i think more incriminating details will emerge so he's not safe by any stretch I'd say.