On Dom's lack of apology and hubristic mien, it's surely to be expected. All Christians recite the Lord's prayer which refers to "Thy king Dom Cum.. " It laters says ".. we forgive those who trespass against us". Perhaps the ire of the C of E bishopry is misdirected.
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
On Dom's lack of apology and hubristic mien, it's surely to be expected. All Christians recite the Lord's prayer which refers to "Thy king Dom Cum.. " It laters says ".. we forgive those who trespass against us". Perhaps the ire of the C of E bishopry is misdirected.
Are you suggesting he is the Second Cummings?
He's not the Messiah, he is just a very naughty boy...for breaking quarantine guidance and telling whoppas.
I hope he doesn’t reveal himself by standing naked at a window displaying his Manchap though.
Cummings and Johnson need to put this rubbish behind them and get back to work.
Weston-Super-Mare Hospital halts admissions this afternoon due to major spike in Coronavirus cases (BBC).
It begins. Give it two weeks and we'll be back in full lockdown as the majority of people have not been following the guidelines to a lesser or greater degree in the past fortnight. There has effectively been no lockdown since Boris eased things.
What do you mean...everybody is acting very sensibly...oh wait...
On the other hand, countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, have eased their lockdowns and had similar scenes, and there have not been major second waves
We’d be in a second wave now if the PB forecasts were true. Long before the lockdown was eased, people were falling over themselves on here to lambast Londoners for sitting in parks during a mid spring mini heatwave.
We were assured it would lead to a second spike.
It didn’t.
True. A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
I wonder if we will see season tickets for next year at 20% capacity. I think it could be done safely but will probably be untenable.
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
If football clubs seriously tried to put their ticket prices up by even half that amount there would be an outcry from fans and rightly so. I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
In League Two, if you halved some younger players wages, you would be breaking minimum wage laws.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I never suggested that all players would need to see their wages cut drastically but I do think that the days of Championship teams paying 20K a week to some their players and even the 5K a week that some League 2 players are on are over for the time being. With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm. The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
Will there even be a 2020-1 season for League Two clubs if they are not allowed any supporters at all? Im not sure its viable. I think they will have to look at something like 20-30% of capacities.
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
Prof Tim Spector tells BBC (R4) that the COVID app identifies two spikes related to Cheltenham and the Merseyside match - interview at 07.50.
Pretty amazing seeing as the app wasnt launched until over 2 weeks later.
Surely the data was backdated? Don't really see your point therefore.
Its a daily tracker. There is no data in there about attendance at said events.
How can they tell whether Liverpool had more cases because there was a super spreader at a nightclub, a school, a church or a football match?
They cant.
I think you're talking complete rubbish.
I use the app and have done from the start. It asks me my symptoms on that day. Never anything about my symptoms on any previous day let alone two weeks before the app started.
Certainly their public data starts on the day the app started 29 March:
Cheltenham was 10-13 March, Liverpool Atletico was 11 March.
The story is a complete guess, no data behind it.
Anyway , the thinking then (quite rightly imo) was to go for herd immunity and control rather than cut off the virus to keep NHS capacity. Cheltenham (I went for a couple of days) and the football gave huge numbers of people great pleasure and these things make life worth living for a lot of people. Life is not just about avoiding risk of death.
Yes, that was my own view. I went for the first few days. I would not have done so if I had known then what I know now.
Btw, I have to ask what is the evidence of a post-Cheltenham spike. I live nearby and Gloucestershire seems no worse affected than the rest of the country.
The PM asked us to put the country ahead of ourselves and our families. That is the whole point!
The lesson of the 1951 election is that UK voters may accept some temporary socialism in a crisis, but they are not naturally socialist. The chains will be discarded as soon as possible.
"I did it for my family" plays well amongst Conservative voters.
Good luck getting adherence on the return of kids to school.
Cummings and Johnson need to put this rubbish behind them and get back to work.
Weston-Super-Mare Hospital halts admissions this afternoon due to major spike in Coronavirus cases (BBC).
It begins. Give it two weeks and we'll be back in full lockdown as the majority of people have not been following the guidelines to a lesser or greater degree in the past fortnight. There has effectively been no lockdown since Boris eased things.
What do you mean...everybody is acting very sensibly...oh wait...
On the other hand, countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, have eased their lockdowns and had similar scenes, and there have not been major second waves
We’d be in a second wave now if the PB forecasts were true. Long before the lockdown was eased, people were falling over themselves on here to lambast Londoners for sitting in parks during a mid spring mini heatwave.
We were assured it would lead to a second spike.
It didn’t.
True. A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
I wonder if we will see season tickets for next year at 20% capacity. I think it could be done safely but will probably be untenable.
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
If football clubs seriously tried to put their ticket prices up by even half that amount there would be an outcry from fans and rightly so. I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
In League Two, if you halved some younger players wages, you would be breaking minimum wage laws.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I never suggested that all players would need to see their wages cut drastically but I do think that the days of Championship teams paying 20K a week to some their players and even the 5K a week that some League 2 players are on are over for the time being. With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm. The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
Will there even be a 2020-1 season for League Two clubs if they are not allowed any supporters at all? Im not sure its viable. I think they will have to look at something like 20-30% of capacities.
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
20-30% capacity is probably normal gate for most its making the stand 2m apart that could be difficult
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
Sleeping off a life on dividends.
Thin pickings from dividends just now.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
Cummings and Johnson need to put this rubbish behind them and get back to work.
Weston-Super-Mare Hospital halts admissions this afternoon due to major spike in Coronavirus cases (BBC).
It begins. Give it two weeks and we'll be back in full lockdown as the majority of people have not been following the guidelines to a lesser or greater degree in the past fortnight. There has effectively been no lockdown since Boris eased things.
What do you mean...everybody is acting very sensibly...oh wait...
On the other hand, countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, have eased their lockdowns and had similar scenes, and there have not been major second waves
We’d be in a second wave now if the PB forecasts were true. Long before the lockdown was eased, people were falling over themselves on here to lambast Londoners for sitting in parks during a mid spring mini heatwave.
We were assured it would lead to a second spike.
It didn’t.
True. A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
I wonder if we will see season tickets for next year at 20% capacity. I think it could be done safely but will probably be untenable.
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
If football clubs seriously tried to put their ticket prices up by even half that amount there would be an outcry from fans and rightly so. I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
In League Two, if you halved some younger players wages, you would be breaking minimum wage laws.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I never suggested that all players would need to see their wages cut drastically but I do think that the days of Championship teams paying 20K a week to some their players and even the 5K a week that some League 2 players are on are over for the time being. With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm. The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
Will there even be a 2020-1 season for League Two clubs if they are not allowed any supporters at all? Im not sure its viable. I think they will have to look at something like 20-30% of capacities.
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
Those days only existed because of the stupidity of that football club and the fact no-one wanted him on that money.
Listening to the chief executive of my local (fan owned) club at the weekend it sounds like the National League have really annoyed the clubs with their lack of advice and actions and a lot of clubs are seriously hurting.
Some such as Hartlepool are probably going to disappear.
I Also, as others have noted, the government has told the rest of us to put the interests of the community over those of ourselves during the pandemic. Was that advice wrong? Or was it only meant for the little people?
"Interests of the community" sounds good, and it may even come above the individual, but family comes top.
On Dom's lack of apology and hubristic mien, it's surely to be expected. All Christians recite the Lord's prayer which refers to "Thy king Dom Cum.. " It laters says ".. we forgive those who trespass against us". Perhaps the ire of the C of E bishopry is misdirected.
Are you suggesting he is the Second Cummings?
He's not the Messiah, he is just a very naughty boy...for breaking quarantine guidance and telling whoppas.
I hope he doesn’t reveal himself by standing naked at a window displaying his Manchap though.
If it wasn't so small (allegedly) I have no doubt he would have slapped it on the table in defiance of everyone watching.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Second-home lockdown might not cut it with the public but I'd want to know the precise whereabouts of all MPs before predicting how sympathetic they might be. Most people do not have second homes but most MPs do. (As an aside, it would be interesting to check MPs' primary homes for lockdown are the same as the ones declared for expenses.)
I Also, as others have noted, the government has told the rest of us to put the interests of the community over those of ourselves during the pandemic. Was that advice wrong? Or was it only meant for the little people?
"Interests of the community" sounds good, and it may even come above the individual, but family comes top.
"Stay at home, save lives, but do whatever is best for your own family" wasn't the guidance as far as I recall. I believe it was David Cameron who said that society wasn't the same thing as the state, I didn't have him down as a Lefty.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Second-home lockdown might not cut it with the public but I'd want to know the precise whereabouts of all MPs before predicting how sympathetic they might be. Most people do not have second homes but most MPs do. (As an aside, it would be interesting to check MPs' primary homes for lockdown are the same as the ones declared for expenses.)
Large numbers of MPs do seem to be in their constituencies.
However, I don’t think most of them went there while shedding virus.
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
Sleeping off a life on dividends.
Thin pickings from dividends just now.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
You can always resign if you don’t want to go back to work.
Cummings and Johnson need to put this rubbish behind them and get back to work.
Weston-Super-Mare Hospital halts admissions this afternoon due to major spike in Coronavirus cases (BBC).
It begins. Give it two weeks and we'll be back in full lockdown as the majority of people have not been following the guidelines to a lesser or greater degree in the past fortnight. There has effectively been no lockdown since Boris eased things.
What do you mean...everybody is acting very sensibly...oh wait...
On the other hand, countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, have eased their lockdowns and had similar scenes, and there have not been major second waves
We’d be in a second wave now if the PB forecasts were true. Long before the lockdown was eased, people were falling over themselves on here to lambast Londoners for sitting in parks during a mid spring mini heatwave.
We were assured it would lead to a second spike.
It didn’t.
True. A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
I wonder if we will see season tickets for next year at 20% capacity. I think it could be done safely but will probably be untenable.
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
If football clubs seriously tried to put their ticket prices up by even half that amount there would be an outcry from fans and rightly so. I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
In League Two, if you halved some younger players wages, you would be breaking minimum wage laws.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I never suggested that all players would need to see their wages cut drastically but I do think that the days of Championship teams paying 20K a week to some their players and even the 5K a week that some League 2 players are on are over for the time being. With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm. The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
Will there even be a 2020-1 season for League Two clubs if they are not allowed any supporters at all? Im not sure its viable. I think they will have to look at something like 20-30% of capacities.
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
Those days only existed because of the stupidity of that football club and the fact no-one wanted him on that money.
Listening to the chief executive of my local (fan owned) club at the weekend it sounds like the National League have really annoyed the clubs with their lack of advice and actions and a lot of clubs are seriously hurting.
Some such as Hartlepool are probably going to disappear.
Whilst I very much sympathise with the clubs, what advice can the National League actually give?
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
Sleeping off a life on dividends.
Thin pickings from dividends just now.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
Surely you mean "they wants us all back in the shops"?
Mr. Punter, not necessarily. It's entirely possible the PM feels he can't govern without Cummings. Or that Boris Johnson's ill judgement is just making a repeat appearance.
Morning all,
Seems to me that yes, Johnson does feel he can't function in government without Cummings.
Being PM is hard and a ton of hassle from 5am or 6am until late at night every day.
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
Sleeping off a life on dividends.
Thin pickings from dividends just now.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
You can always resign if you don’t want to go back to work.
I've been working throughout. But I can WFH so it's not a problem.
Cummings and Johnson need to put this rubbish behind them and get back to work.
Weston-Super-Mare Hospital halts admissions this afternoon due to major spike in Coronavirus cases (BBC).
It begins. Give it two weeks and we'll be back in full lockdown as the majority of people have not been following the guidelines to a lesser or greater degree in the past fortnight. There has effectively been no lockdown since Boris eased things.
What do you mean...everybody is acting very sensibly...oh wait...
On the other hand, countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, have eased their lockdowns and had similar scenes, and there have not been major second waves
We’d be in a second wave now if the PB forecasts were true. Long before the lockdown was eased, people were falling over themselves on here to lambast Londoners for sitting in parks during a mid spring mini heatwave.
We were assured it would lead to a second spike.
It didn’t.
True. A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
I wonder if we will see season tickets for next year at 20% capacity. I think it could be done safely but will probably be untenable.
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
If football clubs seriously tried to put their ticket prices up by even half that amount there would be an outcry from fans and rightly so. I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
In League Two, if you halved some younger players wages, you would be breaking minimum wage laws.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I never suggested that all players would need to see their wages cut drastically but I do think that the days of Championship teams paying 20K a week to some their players and even the 5K a week that some League 2 players are on are over for the time being. With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm. The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
Will there even be a 2020-1 season for League Two clubs if they are not allowed any supporters at all? Im not sure its viable. I think they will have to look at something like 20-30% of capacities.
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
20-30% capacity is probably normal gate for most its making the stand 2m apart that could be difficult
Average gate is about 45-50% capacity in Lge 1 & 2, so if they could have 20-30% capacity and increase prices they can get most of their gate revenue in.
I Also, as others have noted, the government has told the rest of us to put the interests of the community over those of ourselves during the pandemic. Was that advice wrong? Or was it only meant for the little people?
"Interests of the community" sounds good, and it may even come above the individual, but family comes top.
So what? You are not allowed to shoplift food and clothing for your children, not even if they are starving and naked, nor to rob sub post offices to provide them with a better education, so we'll file that remark under mawkish cant (that's cant with an a).
The PM asked us to put the country ahead of ourselves and our families. That is the whole point!
The lesson of the 1951 election is that UK voters may accept some temporary socialism in a crisis, but they are not naturally socialist. The chains will be discarded as soon as possible.
"I did it for my family" plays well amongst Conservative voters.
Good luck getting adherence on the return of kids to school.
One of mine is back at school next week - I would say 90%+ of the class are going back based on parental chat.
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
Sleeping off a life on dividends.
Thin pickings from dividends just now.
Not seen much impact on mine so far, expect there will be some down the line mind you.
No one on the left understands Mrs T's no such thing as society speech.
Conservatives used to deny Mrs Thatcher had even said it, until her eponymous foundation republished the interview. They now recognise there is such a thing as society.
Whether it matters is another question. In the 80s and 90s, there was a big push amongst Conservative academics to establish the philosphical roots of Thatcherism but I'm not sure it ever got very far.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Second-home lockdown might not cut it with the public but I'd want to know the precise whereabouts of all MPs before predicting how sympathetic they might be. Most people do not have second homes but most MPs do. (As an aside, it would be interesting to check MPs' primary homes for lockdown are the same as the ones declared for expenses.)
Large numbers of MPs do seem to be in their constituencies.
However, I don’t think most of them went there while shedding virus.
"shedding virus"? You'd have a point - if he made the journey in an open-topped convertible.
The PM asked us to put the country ahead of ourselves and our families. That is the whole point!
The lesson of the 1951 election is that UK voters may accept some temporary socialism in a crisis, but they are not naturally socialist. The chains will be discarded as soon as possible.
"I did it for my family" plays well amongst Conservative voters.
Labour got more votes than the Tories in 1951.
I did it for family plays well among long-term Tory voters. It may be less persuasive among those who are not traditionally Tory voters. The lies will not be appreciated by many beyond the tribalists.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
Surely you mean "they wants us all back in the shops"?
It does strike me that the sequence with which places are being reopened reflect the prosperous countryside background of most of the Cabinet. Golf, tennis, parks, garden centres. All of these are remote from many peoples' lives (when I lived in London I don't remember ever meeting anyone refering to any of them except, occasionally, parks), whereas something like pubs and cafes offering outside seating are probably no riskier than garden centres but closer to what many urban people would care about.
Gove on R4 saying Cummings did not break the rules.
Yes, he bloody did. The rules were STAY AT HOME!!
Even if the travel to Durham could be made an exception, the day trip to Barnard Castle was in clear breach of the rules.
Im still not clear why the earlier returning to work after coming home to see his wife with suspected coronavirus isnt an illegal breach of quarantine.
According to one poster it is because her symptoms of suspected coronavirus did not meet the needs for quarantine but simultaneously were sufficient enough that he could decide they were in imminent danger of not being able to look after their child. They obviously also could tell that this incapacity would not happen in their five hour 350 mile trip to Durham.
I Also, as others have noted, the government has told the rest of us to put the interests of the community over those of ourselves during the pandemic. Was that advice wrong? Or was it only meant for the little people?
"Interests of the community" sounds good, and it may even come above the individual, but family comes top.
So what? You are not allowed to shoplift food and clothing for your children, not even if they are starving and naked, nor to rob sub post offices to provide them with a better education, so we'll file that remark under mawkish cant (that's cant with an a).
I studied under a Professor at Cardiff who asserted that in a truly Libertarian Society all of the above was acceptable.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Sadly it is going to cut it, for just enough.
I thought about these ‘nobody’ claims I made, and realised they are not true. Tribal loyalists will. Bluest Blue, for example, sees no difference between driving a few miles across London to deliver medicines and having a chat with parents in the garden and driving an infectious person all the length of England.
The question is, will it buy off Tory MPs, who have obviously been pretty shaken by the reaction?
Tory MPs will rally round. Of course they will. The only other choice they have is to get rid of Johnson. And they won't do that. Yet. But this story will be remembered out in the country. The government asked people to make sacrifices it did not expect Dominic Cummings to make. The elite looked after one of its own. That wil be tough to shake-off.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
Surely you mean "they wants us all back in the shops"?
It does strike me that the sequence with which places are being reopened reflect the prosperous countryside background of most of the Cabinet. Golf, tennis, parks, garden centres. All of these are remote from many peoples' lives (when I lived in London I don't remember ever meeting anyone refering to any of them except, occasionally, parks), whereas something like pubs and cafes offering outside seating are probably no riskier than garden centres but closer to what many urban people would care about.
Alternatively, the government is using poshos as guinea pigs.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
Surely you mean "they wants us all back in the shops"?
It does strike me that the sequence with which places are being reopened reflect the prosperous countryside background of most of the Cabinet. Golf, tennis, parks, garden centres. All of these are remote from many peoples' lives (when I lived in London I don't remember ever meeting anyone refering to any of them except, occasionally, parks), whereas something like pubs and cafes offering outside seating are probably no riskier than garden centres but closer to what many urban people would care about.
Anything outdoors less than 50 people with social distancing, should reopen in line with shops.
The bottom line is that most of his foes want him out so that Boris Johnson can be weakened, the Conservatives damaged, the Government’s electoral chances set back and EU transition extended.
They shouldn’t succeed, but they could do. For if those poll numbers don’t move, we think that Cummings may walk. We have few illusions here about British politics. Or human nature. Paul Goodman, ConservativeHome
Just reading through the comments. Almost universal condemnation of Cummings' press conference yesterday. PB has come together as one for once. ...Or maybe the right-wing loons haven't woken up yet? It's only the plebs that get up early getting ready for work I guess
Sleeping off a life on dividends.
Thin pickings from dividends just now.
That's why they want us all back at work, even if it kills us.
Surely you mean "they wants us all back in the shops"?
Yes, I'm always at work during the 9 - 5 hours the shops are open. I always wonder who the people are in them in the main at that point !
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Second-home lockdown might not cut it with the public but I'd want to know the precise whereabouts of all MPs before predicting how sympathetic they might be. Most people do not have second homes but most MPs do. (As an aside, it would be interesting to check MPs' primary homes for lockdown are the same as the ones declared for expenses.)
Large numbers of MPs do seem to be in their constituencies.
However, I don’t think most of them went there while shedding virus.
"shedding virus"? You'd have a point - if he made the journey in an open-topped convertible.
They stayed in the car after getting to Durham? I thought they got out and went into a house.
Funny how many of those who say that Boris is too concerned with public opinion and won't stand up to it are now asking why Boris is standing by his advisor rather than bending to public opinion here? Maybe Boris is doing what he thinks is the right thing.
Now we know both the Guardian and Daily Mirror have printed lies on this subject I won't be holding my breath for prominent apologies/retractions from them.
Prof Tim Spector tells BBC (R4) that the COVID app identifies two spikes related to Cheltenham and the Merseyside match - interview at 07.50.
Pretty amazing seeing as the app wasnt launched until over 2 weeks later.
Surely the data was backdated? Don't really see your point therefore.
Its a daily tracker. There is no data in there about attendance at said events.
How can they tell whether Liverpool had more cases because there was a super spreader at a nightclub, a school, a church or a football match?
They cant.
Clusters, data, statistics, spikes ... it's not difficult.
As someone who does these types of analysis, it is actually quite difficult (and outside of a few specific quasi-experimental designs - for this you could do interrupted time series if there are good local data) you can't really infer causality. I haven't heard the interview, but would be surprised if what was said was stronger than 'associated with'. But it is like that XKCD cartoon* - correlation does not imply causation, but (where you continue to see correlations) correlation may waggle its eyebrows suggestively while gesturing furtively and mouthing 'look over there'. A peak after Cheltenham could well be coincidence, a peak after Cheltenham and the football match, could also be coincidental, throw in a few other things and try very hard to find alternative explanations and fail and you start to believe in it.
I believe it was David Cameron who said that society wasn't the same thing as the state, I didn't have him down as a Lefty.
I think he was having a go at lefties... (who do seem to think this).
You seem to think it too, which is the point I was making. I said "community" and you read it as "state". I don't view them as the same thing, personally. In a well functioning society like you see in Scandinavia or the Netherlands, the state is an expression of the community and its interests. Since Thatcher's time, the state here has more often than not acted as an enforcer of elite interests rather than those of the community as a whole. So when Tories say that the state is distinct from the community I tend to see that as a normative as much as a positive statement.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Second-home lockdown might not cut it with the public but I'd want to know the precise whereabouts of all MPs before predicting how sympathetic they might be. Most people do not have second homes but most MPs do. (As an aside, it would be interesting to check MPs' primary homes for lockdown are the same as the ones declared for expenses.)
Large numbers of MPs do seem to be in their constituencies.
However, I don’t think most of them went there while shedding virus.
"shedding virus"? You'd have a point - if he made the journey in an open-topped convertible.
So you believe the combo of:
No break needed in 5 hour 350 mile trip to Durham
Break needed in 30 minute drive to test his eyesight (by a beauty spot on wifes bday)
Come on, we know you dont believe it. And if you do, is driving that far without a break with an ill family and the possibility of yourself being ill not clearly reckless driving?
Funny how many of those who say that Boris is too concerned with public opinion and won't stand up to it are now asking why Boris is standing by his advisor rather than bending to public opinion here? Maybe Boris is doing what he thinks is the right thing.
That's exactly what people said about Blair's conversion to flying in the face of public opinion over the Iraq War.
Gove on R4 saying Cummings did not break the rules.
Yes, he bloody did. The rules were STAY AT HOME!!
Even if the travel to Durham could be made an exception, the day trip to Barnard Castle was in clear breach of the rules.
Im still not clear why the earlier returning to work after coming home to see his wife with suspected coronavirus isnt an illegal breach of quarantine.
According to one poster it is because her symptoms of suspected coronavirus did not meet the needs for quarantine but simultaneously were sufficient enough that he could decide they were in imminent danger of not being able to look after their child. They obviously also could tell that this incapacity would not happen in their five hour 350 mile trip to Durham.
Truly a wonderful superforecaster.
This is one of a number of weaknesses in the account, which taken as a whole sadly is not believable in entirety. The account itself, at its highest, is only a weak defence, but taken with the inability of anyone I have noticed to say unambiguously "I believe the account is honest, complete and true" (including his closest mates like Gove and Boris), this is going to be corrosive.
Funny how many of those who say that Boris is too concerned with public opinion and won't stand up to it are now asking why Boris is standing by his advisor rather than bending to public opinion here? Maybe Boris is doing what he thinks is the right thing.
Now we know both the Guardian and Daily Mirror have printed lies on this subject I won't be holding my breath for prominent apologies/retractions from them.
Do we? I know Cummings has claimed that his phone records exonerate him. However, he also clearly made a number of lies, rather ridiculous ones at that, in the same statement. So I’m suspending judgement for the moment. Unless he has released his phone records, which would be different, but so far I can’t find he has. If I’m wrong, please feel free to share the link.
Funny how many of those who say that Boris is too concerned with public opinion and won't stand up to it are now asking why Boris is standing by his advisor rather than bending to public opinion here? Maybe Boris is doing what he thinks is the right thing.
Now we know both the Guardian and Daily Mirror have printed lies on this subject I won't be holding my breath for prominent apologies/retractions from them.
We know he always does the right thing...for himself. That is hardly news.
On a non-partisan note, my council exec inbox this morning contains this interesting snippet (from the Leeds council leader for some odd reason, but it has a publicservice flavour), on how track&trrace will work:
Every part of the country will develop in June a local outbreak control plan and we look forward to working within eleven areas to share and spread good practice. These will be based on upper tier local authority areas linked to public health responsibilities. Councils will need to fully involve NHS partners including GPs, as well as district councils in two tier areas, and will be able to collaborate across a larger geography if they so wish.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Sadly it is going to cut it, for just enough.
I thought about these ‘nobody’ claims I made, and realised they are not true. Tribal loyalists will. Bluest Blue, for example, sees no difference between driving a few miles across London to deliver medicines and having a chat with parents in the garden and driving an infectious person all the length of England.
The question is, will it buy off Tory MPs, who have obviously been pretty shaken by the reaction?
Tory MPs will rally round. Of course they will. The only other choice they have is to get rid of Johnson. And they won't do that. Yet. But this story will be remembered out in the country. The government asked people to make sacrifices it did not expect Dominic Cummings to make. The elite looked after one of its own. That wil be tough to shake-off.
I would like that to be true, but will it?
Will the public's anger stick to Cummings, Johnson and the Cabinet in particular? I think there's a decent chance that it could be directed against all politicians in general - "they're all as bad as each other, he's just the only one who was caught."
Then, at the next election, there's the ever-present danger of Labour, seeking to gain a moral advantage over the Tories, in appearing to set themselves up as better than the voters.
I'm more worried about the effect on quarantine and the virus, mind. Nervy times.
I just wonder whether they decided to have a family holiday together back in the part of the world where they come from.
It’s even easier than that. They just wanted a nice house with a garden to lock down in. Who wouldn’t?
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
Second-home lockdown might not cut it with the public but I'd want to know the precise whereabouts of all MPs before predicting how sympathetic they might be. Most people do not have second homes but most MPs do. (As an aside, it would be interesting to check MPs' primary homes for lockdown are the same as the ones declared for expenses.)
Large numbers of MPs do seem to be in their constituencies.
However, I don’t think most of them went there while shedding virus.
"shedding virus"? You'd have a point - if he made the journey in an open-topped convertible.
They stayed in the car after getting to Durham? I thought they got out and went into a house.
Perhaps he remained quarantined in the car for 14 days before driving to Barnards Castle.
It certainly looks to me like Matron allows her patients to use the computers after breakfast.
Its literally what Dom said yesterday. There's more than one illness in the world.
So why the rush up to Durham?
Because she was ill and he'd been heavily exposed to the virus and everyone he was working with was falling ill. So if he fell ill too then his nieces were available for childcare. Isn't that what he said?
In a sane world, we'd be arguing over whether the lockdown rules make any sense at all, now it's clear that the NHS isn't going to be overwhelmed, which was the original reason for ruining our economy and society and giving up many of our ancient freedoms.
It isn't unravelling, it's Cummings opponents getting lost in the detail. Most don't believe 100% of Cummings' story. I don't myself (though I still don't see what he did as a resigning matter). But the story will need more than this to revive it.
Mr. Punter, not necessarily. It's entirely possible the PM feels he can't govern without Cummings. Or that Boris Johnson's ill judgement is just making a repeat appearance.
Morning all,
Seems to me that yes, Johnson does feel he can't function in government without Cummings.
Being PM is hard and a ton of hassle from 5am or 6am until late at night every day.
Mind you Theresa May was filmed watching Pointless with her husband and Reagan used to watch soap operas every evening with Nancy.
If you don't get any relaxation in the day like Gordon Brown or little sleep like Thatcher it does not do you much good
The PM asked us to put the country ahead of ourselves and our families. That is the whole point!
The lesson of the 1951 election is that UK voters may accept some temporary socialism in a crisis, but they are not naturally socialist. The chains will be discarded as soon as possible.
"I did it for my family" plays well amongst Conservative voters.
It isn't unravelling, it's Cummings opponents getting lost in the detail. Most don't believe 100% of Cummings' story. I don't myself (though I still don't see what he did as a resigning matter). But the story will need more than this to revive it.
Cummings leaving us with the image of driving to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight means there's no chance the story will disappear through getting lost in the detail. Kay Burley just asked Michael Gove when Specsavers will reopen.
On a non-partisan note, my council exec inbox this morning contains this interesting snippet (from the Leeds council leader for some odd reason, but it has a publicservice flavour), on how track&trrace will work:
Every part of the country will develop in June a local outbreak control plan and we look forward to working within eleven areas to share and spread good practice. These will be based on upper tier local authority areas linked to public health responsibilities. Councils will need to fully involve NHS partners including GPs, as well as district councils in two tier areas, and will be able to collaborate across a larger geography if they so wish.
So a seperate round of chinese whispers and potential for conflict in two tier areas as well as inevitable additional cost of implementation. Unitary for everywhere now !
It isn't unravelling, it's Cummings opponents getting lost in the detail. Most don't believe 100% of Cummings' story. I don't myself (though I still don't see what he did as a resigning matter). But the story will need more than this to revive it.
Cummings literally said this himself yesterday, so what's the confusion with Gove saying the same thing now?
The difficulty is not about confusion, it is about the total credibility of the account which sounds like a lawyerly attempt to account for all the provable independent data while claiming you have done nothing wrong. It's all fine as a script but I have not actually noticed anyone indicate that they believe it all. I think that is because they don't. And both politics and media have moved so far from that basic value of truthfulness for its own sake that it is hard to notice that no-one is finding DC actually credible, as opposed to doing enough to escape for now.
It isn't unravelling, it's Cummings opponents getting lost in the detail. Most don't believe 100% of Cummings' story. I don't myself (though I still don't see what he did as a resigning matter). But the story will need more than this to revive it.
yeah, this needs the Guardian to make up some more details.
Its literally what Dom said yesterday. There's more than one illness in the world.
So why the rush up to Durham?
Because she was ill and he'd been heavily exposed to the virus and everyone he was working with was falling ill. So if he fell ill too then his nieces were available for childcare. Isn't that what he said?
He could have sought help from his brother in law in London, or from friends. The lockdown exemption for young children relates to an immediate threat to life. The fact that his wife had a tummy bug is so far from that threshold to be laughable. By his own admission he never actually needed any childcare help so it's clear there was never any immediate threat to his child. And by travelling in a car together for five hours the risk of infection was far greater (from MW to DC if MW had it, and vice versa if she didn't; certainly the risk of infecting the kid went up - so much for his welfare). The whole story is a crock of shit, it's embarrassing to see grown people trying to defend it.
On Dom's lack of apology and hubristic mien, it's surely to be expected. All Christians recite the Lord's prayer which refers to "Thy king Dom Cum.. " It laters says ".. we forgive those who trespass against us". Perhaps the ire of the C of E bishopry is misdirected.
It isn't unravelling, it's Cummings opponents getting lost in the detail. Most don't believe 100% of Cummings' story. I don't myself (though I still don't see what he did as a resigning matter). But the story will need more than this to revive it.
If Cummings did not believe that his wife had covid-19 there was no reason to drive to Durham. If he did believe she had it there was no way he shoud have gone back to work.
The story is done. Cummings is staying. But people will remember the lies and the fact it was one rule for him and another for everyone else.
If it turns out this hasn't cut through - and hopefully polling will be able to give support to that, or not - then I will be surprised but in that case, this Government seems entirely immune to scandal.
Not necessarily surprised with Johnson's history - but still.
This should have been the press release the day after he went up:
"Dominic Cummings and his young family have been transported to their parents home in Durham due to illness. Given Mr Cummings critical role as the bridge between SAGE and the Cabinet it is in the essential national interest that he can recuperate as quickly as possible and know that his family is close to support whilst ill."
With the PM ill and in the early days of lockdown, it would have attracted some attention but not much at all. Yes its one rule for the elite and another for everyone else but at least with a practical justification and no silly lies that take us for mugs.
In a sane world, we'd be arguing over whether the lockdown rules make any sense at all, now it's clear that the NHS isn't going to be overwhelmed, which was the original reason for ruining our economy and society and giving up many of our ancient freedoms.
No we wouldn't. Look at this chart. The UK is the worst in the world (vacillation), together with Sweden (anti-lockdown), Brazil (anti-lockdown) and the USA (nuts). Oh, and San Marino (no idea what their policy is).
Its literally what Dom said yesterday. There's more than one illness in the world.
So why the rush up to Durham?
Because she was ill and he'd been heavily exposed to the virus and everyone he was working with was falling ill. So if he fell ill too then his nieces were available for childcare. Isn't that what he said?
So, one rule for him and another for everyone else.
Cummings and Johnson need to put this rubbish behind them and get back to work.
Weston-Super-Mare Hospital halts admissions this afternoon due to major spike in Coronavirus cases (BBC).
It begins. Give it two weeks and we'll be back in full lockdown as the majority of people have not been following the guidelines to a lesser or greater degree in the past fortnight. There has effectively been no lockdown since Boris eased things.
What do you mean...everybody is acting very sensibly...oh wait...
On the other hand, countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, etc, have eased their lockdowns and had similar scenes, and there have not been major second waves
We’d be in a second wave now if the PB forecasts were true. Long before the lockdown was eased, people were falling over themselves on here to lambast Londoners for sitting in parks during a mid spring mini heatwave.
We were assured it would lead to a second spike.
It didn’t.
True. A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
I wonder if we will see season tickets for next year at 20% capacity. I think it could be done safely but will probably be untenable.
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
If football clubs seriously tried to put their ticket prices up by even half that amount there would be an outcry from fans and rightly so. I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
In League Two, if you halved some younger players wages, you would be breaking minimum wage laws.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I never suggested that all players would need to see their wages cut drastically but I do think that the days of Championship teams paying 20K a week to some their players and even the 5K a week that some League 2 players are on are over for the time being. With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm. The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
Will there even be a 2020-1 season for League Two clubs if they are not allowed any supporters at all? Im not sure its viable. I think they will have to look at something like 20-30% of capacities.
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
Those days only existed because of the stupidity of that football club and the fact no-one wanted him on that money.
Listening to the chief executive of my local (fan owned) club at the weekend it sounds like the National League have really annoyed the clubs with their lack of advice and actions and a lot of clubs are seriously hurting.
Some such as Hartlepool are probably going to disappear.
Whilst I very much sympathise with the clubs, what advice can the National League actually give?
We are f***ed? Help? Find a very rich benefactor?
Find a rich local businessman, who wants to become a poor local businessman but have a good time doing it?
The Prem Leauge will mostly be okay, they’ll have to reduce squad sizes and get some cash from wealthy shareholders, but they’ll make it through.
The Championship clubs are probably in the worst position, they have a much bigger dependence on the gate than the Prem clubs, but also an awful lot of fixed costs and don’t generally have rich shareholders.
L1 and L2 have little media rights income, depend entirely on the gate, but don’t generally cram them in like they do in the higher leagues. They could also innovate with things like temporary stands. I spect most players end up part time though, or on something around an average man’s wages.
If it turns out this hasn't cut through - and hopefully polling will be able to give support to that, or not - then I will be surprised but in that case, this Government seems entirely immune to scandal.
Not necessarily surprised with Johnson's history - but still.
I think I've read on here that Blair thought he was finished when the Ecclestone stuff came out. This feels almost the opposite to me; that is, the government doesn't realise just how serious this is.
In a sane world, we'd be arguing over whether the lockdown rules make any sense at all, now it's clear that the NHS isn't going to be overwhelmed, which was the original reason for ruining our economy and society and giving up many of our ancient freedoms.
I am afraid we do not live in a sane world. I have seen child murderers get less press coverage than the toilet habits of a 4 year old. The desperation of the press to "get their man" is scary.
So did these events contribute to a surge in coronavirus cases?
It's impossible to say for certain, but figures seen by the BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme show in the last week of March, Liverpool and Cheltenham were among the areas with the highest number of suspected cases.
The figures come from the Covid-19 Symptom Study, and show an estimated 5-6% of the population, aged 20 to 69, having symptoms in those two regions.
It isn't unravelling, it's Cummings opponents getting lost in the detail. Most don't believe 100% of Cummings' story. I don't myself (though I still don't see what he did as a resigning matter). But the story will need more than this to revive it.
yeah, this needs the Guardian to make up some more details.
Good example of the universal pro DC approach: People believe the story is not entirely true but he will and should get away with it.
If Lucky Guy does not believe all the account, as you say, that alone is a resigning matter, and you have to consider, what is the truth underlying this stitched together account that DC does not want us to know? The answer to that question must be a resigning matter otherwise DC would have said it as it was.
What strikes me about those front pages is that they are all about what the organ grinder decided. The monkey is nowhere to be seen. Johnson gave two press conferences about Cummings but it seems they were irrelevant.
Its literally what Dom said yesterday. There's more than one illness in the world.
So why the rush up to Durham?
Because she was ill and he'd been heavily exposed to the virus and everyone he was working with was falling ill. So if he fell ill too then his nieces were available for childcare. Isn't that what he said?
So, one rule for him and another for everyone else.
What an original insight. She was clearly fairly ill, and it could well have been Covid-19 - I'm fairly sure I had it but the respiratory symptoms were barely there. Cummings explained clearly enough why he acted according to the rules and common sense yesterday. It would be a disgrace if he'd been forced to resign because the media and some salty Remainers demanded his head.
The PM asked us to put the country ahead of ourselves and our families. That is the whole point!
The lesson of the 1951 election is that UK voters may accept some temporary socialism in a crisis, but they are not naturally socialist. The chains will be discarded as soon as possible.
"I did it for my family" plays well amongst Conservative voters.
Good luck getting adherence on the return of kids to school.
Especially when elite private schools are closed til September.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52802547
Jack Rodwell was recently on 70k a week not getting in a League One starting XI! Yes those days are hopefully long gone.
Btw, I have to ask what is the evidence of a post-Cheltenham spike. I live nearby and Gloucestershire seems no worse affected than the rest of the country.
Listening to the chief executive of my local (fan owned) club at the weekend it sounds like the National League have really annoyed the clubs with their lack of advice and actions and a lot of clubs are seriously hurting.
Some such as Hartlepool are probably going to disappear.
Yes, he bloody did. The rules were STAY AT HOME!!
Even if the travel to Durham could be made an exception, the day trip to Barnard Castle was in clear breach of the rules.
I believe it was David Cameron who said that society wasn't the same thing as the state, I didn't have him down as a Lefty.
However, I don’t think most of them went there while shedding virus.
We are f***ed? Help? Find a very rich benefactor?
Whether it matters is another question. In the 80s and 90s, there was a big push amongst Conservative academics to establish the philosphical roots of Thatcherism but I'm not sure it ever got very far.
I did it for family plays well among long-term Tory voters. It may be less persuasive among those who are not traditionally Tory voters. The lies will not be appreciated by many beyond the tribalists.
According to one poster it is because her symptoms of suspected coronavirus did not meet the needs for quarantine but simultaneously were sufficient enough that he could decide they were in imminent danger of not being able to look after their child. They obviously also could tell that this incapacity would not happen in their five hour 350 mile trip to Durham.
Truly a wonderful superforecaster.
They shouldn’t succeed, but they could do. For if those poll numbers don’t move, we think that Cummings may walk. We have few illusions here about British politics. Or human nature.
Paul Goodman, ConservativeHome
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1265182410146185216
Now we know both the Guardian and Daily Mirror have printed lies on this subject I won't be holding my breath for prominent apologies/retractions from them.
* https://xkcd.com/552/
No break needed in 5 hour 350 mile trip to Durham
Break needed in 30 minute drive to test his eyesight (by a beauty spot on wifes bday)
Come on, we know you dont believe it. And if you do, is driving that far without a break with an ill family and the possibility of yourself being ill not clearly reckless driving?
The quarantine and lockdowns are over and can never be restarted by this Government.
It's now a matter of doing what you think is best because the advice is going to be ignored by most people.
But unfortunately, it will make no difference to Dominic Cummings’ actions.
Every part of the country will develop in June a local outbreak control plan and we look forward to working within eleven areas to share and spread good practice. These will be based on upper tier local authority areas linked to public health responsibilities. Councils will need to fully involve NHS partners including GPs, as well as district councils in two tier areas, and will be able to collaborate across a larger geography if they so wish.
https://twitter.com/janemerrick23/status/1265182268437471232
Will the public's anger stick to Cummings, Johnson and the Cabinet in particular? I think there's a decent chance that it could be directed against all politicians in general - "they're all as bad as each other, he's just the only one who was caught."
Then, at the next election, there's the ever-present danger of Labour, seeking to gain a moral advantage over the Tories, in appearing to set themselves up as better than the voters.
I'm more worried about the effect on quarantine and the virus, mind. Nervy times.
It certainly looks to me like Matron allows her patients to use the computers after breakfast.
They have had a while to war game this.
If you don't get any relaxation in the day like Gordon Brown or little sleep like Thatcher it does not do you much good
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech
"Driving to Barnard Castle" seems to be entering the cultural lexicon in a similar manner to "Discussing Uganda".
The story is done. Cummings is staying. But people will remember the lies and the fact it was one rule for him and another for everyone else.
Not necessarily surprised with Johnson's history - but still.
"Dominic Cummings and his young family have been transported to their parents home in Durham due to illness. Given Mr Cummings critical role as the bridge between SAGE and the Cabinet it is in the essential national interest that he can recuperate as quickly as possible and know that his family is close to support whilst ill."
With the PM ill and in the early days of lockdown, it would have attracted some attention but not much at all. Yes its one rule for the elite and another for everyone else but at least with a practical justification and no silly lies that take us for mugs.
https://twitter.com/StanCollymore/status/1265022551501275137/photo/1
We should not be trying to reinforce this record by further relaxation of public indoor activity until the situation improves further.
The Prem Leauge will mostly be okay, they’ll have to reduce squad sizes and get some cash from wealthy shareholders, but they’ll make it through.
The Championship clubs are probably in the worst position, they have a much bigger dependence on the gate than the Prem clubs, but also an awful lot of fixed costs and don’t generally have rich shareholders.
L1 and L2 have little media rights income, depend entirely on the gate, but don’t generally cram them in like they do in the higher leagues. They could also innovate with things like temporary stands. I spect most players end up part time though, or on something around an average man’s wages.
So did these events contribute to a surge in coronavirus cases?
It's impossible to say for certain, but figures seen by the BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme show in the last week of March, Liverpool and Cheltenham were among the areas with the highest number of suspected cases.
The figures come from the Covid-19 Symptom Study, and show an estimated 5-6% of the population, aged 20 to 69, having symptoms in those two regions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52797002
If Lucky Guy does not believe all the account, as you say, that alone is a resigning matter, and you have to consider, what is the truth underlying this stitched together account that DC does not want us to know? The answer to that question must be a resigning matter otherwise DC would have said it as it was.