If everyone is concerned about Cummings causing a distraction, why cause an even worse distraction from important announcements by continuing to ask about him.
Do you believe Cummings story about the Castle expedition? I mean do you, personally, actually believe he was telling the truth?
Sort of.
In the full context of he felt like it was a good idea to drive to see if he was up to the pressures of driving then yes I do. I've done similar before. I think a half hour trip is a great idea before a cross country drive if you have any concerns and I've done that before.
On the out of context word of "eyesight" and an eyesight discussion alone? No.
Does that make sense?
Pure comedy gold. Again.
You, mr will no one think of the children, have in the past worried that your eyesight is not up to driving so you have shouted over to Mrs T: come on luv grab the kids we're going for a drive.
You've done that.
No, read again, not eyesight. I said not eyesight!
My specific word when I said about "eyesight" was "No."
Doing a half hour drive when I'm concerned about my stamina etc to do a five hour drive, yes I have done that.
Ah. Ok. How would you know from a half hour drive whether you had the stamina for a five hour drive?
You just know. Trust your instincts. EG do you feel up to continue driving or do you feel exhausted?
As I said when we first discussed this, it was a tip I got from an RAC guy when I was 18, inexperienced and at university and I've followed it since - if you're feeling a bit rusty then a half hour drive is good exercise for both you and your car.
Ummm... But wouldn't you want the half hour drive to end back at your own place? Otherwise you find yourself marooned half an hour (at least) from home and unfit to drive.
More seriously, even if this was a perfectly understandable...
...Given it was combined with a bit of a walk around Barnard Castle at the other end, then it certainly wasn't in line with the rules.
The weird thing is that you were allowed to travel for the purposes of your daily exercise provided the travel was proportionate which most forces interpreted as being no longer than you spent walking. If he had simply said that on his wife's birthday they decided to go for a nice socially distanced walk around the castle I don't think there would have been anything wrong with that. It was this ridiculous testing my eyesight story that has pissed people off because it was so obviously false.
It is hard to credit. Do you have any theory at all as to why he came out with that?
Unfortunately I am not a psychiatrist and I gave up wondering why the hell my clients said the absurd things that they did a long time ago.
Evening all, just delurking momentarily but hugely enjoying the discourse on here as ever. In response to this, I think the first thing to discount is the idea that he just made this "dog ate my homework" excuse off the cuff, or that he was so stupid to believe that the public would swallow it. Two things we know about Cummings is that he wargames everything, and whatever you may think of him as a person, he's definitely not stupid. The other key point is the one DavidL made is absolutely correct, at the time he made the trip there was nothing stopping him driving there and back for a walk.
So why the story? To me there are two very obvious parallels. This was firstly an unnecessary thing to do that on the surface - rather like the proroguing of Parliament. Secondly, it was an obvious lie or bending of the truth but one that could never be completely proven to be so - rather like the £350m on the bus. And as with both of those examples, I am certain that his reason for doing so was to trigger the "other side" - in this instance the press and the opposition, with the aim of getting both to completely overreach and reveal themselves in the case of the press to be unreasonable zealots, and in the case of the labour party to enable their apparent hypocrisy with regard to the likes of Stephen Kinnock to be revealed.
I would say that Cummings will feel that the press have played their role to perfection, and the tweet from the civil service will have been a nice bonus. The labour party, on the other hand, have played this very wisely, and Keir Starmer is certainly impressing with his political judgement - very welcome news for all of us.
I'm not in any way praising Cummings (if it were me I'd have stepped down for sure) but it is his modus operandi, and I hardly need to remind people on here how catastrophic a blunder both the bus and the proroguing were seen as being at the time, nor how successfully they eventually turned out.
The original events were not designed to be discovered, that much seems clear.
I can support your theory that their uncompromising (and perhaps exacerbating?) response has been purposely designed to throw oil on the fire, but I can't think why, and I think your proposed theories aren't strong enough. It strikes me that either an awful story has just slipped by the press like the Alabama out of its moorings, or they want all this opprobrium for..some..reason. That reason I cannot fathom. The reason they deliberately pissed everyone off before was because they wanted Parliament dissolved and an election called. Assuming they don't want that again, it would have to be another hoped-for event.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
There is a lot of noise and fury from their critics I would agree. But there are some areas where they genuinely dropped a major bollock and it has had a very large impact on deaths. Asa such I think that looking at the basic numbers, it is probably justified to say they have performed badly overall whilst in some areas they have done well.
Too many people have died unnecessarily to be able to say the criticism is just normal political point scoring.
They had monomania about the risk to the NHS. Everything else was second to protecting that. Including the care sector - where the deaths feared in the NHS actually happened. There was a justifiable panic of seeing the health system crashing like it did in parts of Spain and Italy - people dying alone in corridors, against a backdrop of 250/500k dead. If that happened, the country would have suffered a truly terrible outcome. So it couldn't be allowed to happen. And to be fair, it was prevented.
But there was no flexibility. There needed to be the option created early on of Nightingale hospitals being remodelled as care wards, half-way houses for those who would return to their care homes - but only once Covid-free. It was as if all those involved breathed a huge sigh of relief that the worst was over when the NHS didn't get over-run.
Just had a pretty horrible experience at the local park. Two men were letting their rather nasty looking dogs run around in the part of the park set aside for children, which is clearly marked "no dogs". My wife politely asked if they were unaware of the rules and asked if they could move to the park reserved for dogs. She and I were met with a barge of threats and bad language. The kids started crying and we went home. Made me think of the people defending Mr Cummings for breaking the rules, for whom winning is everything and any idea of decency or fairness is for wimps and losers. What a nasty little country we are becoming, and what a message our rulers are sending.
Now idiotic dog-owners are Cummings' fault too...
I take it all back - the PM's adviser has indeed spread a highly contagious disease around our country after all ... Cummings Derangement Syndrome.
I didn't say that. I doubt the men in question had even heard of Dominic Cummings. I was merely highlighting another depressing example of people who think that might is right and that rules are for mugs.
Just had a pretty horrible experience at the local park. Two men were letting their rather nasty looking dogs run around in the part of the park set aside for children, which is clearly marked "no dogs". My wife politely asked if they were unaware of the rules and asked if they could move to the park reserved for dogs. She and I were met with a barge of threats and bad language. The kids started crying and we went home. Made me think of the people defending Mr Cummings for breaking the rules, for whom winning is everything and any idea of decency or fairness is for wimps and losers. What a nasty little country we are becoming, and what a message our rulers are sending.
You're being silly making a comparison between those disgusting thugs in the park and the Cummings affair.
Antisocial rule breakers who think they are above the law? Yeah, why would they have made me think of Mr Cummings?
At the start of lockdown Sturgeon’s SNP had poll leads of up to 14% – now the latest two surveys have that up at 25%.
At this rate independence might happen quite soon.
On the face of it the polling trends look worrying for the Conservatives and good for the SNP which is seeing a lot of progress in getting the gap larger.
For the SNP the really positive thing has been the improvement in the leader ratings.
The big question is how will this now go? Can BoJo/Dom stop any further erosion or is Sturgeon’s big ratings progress going to be translated into even better voting intention numbers? We don’t know, which is why the Unionist media commission so few Scottish polls.
The main concern for the SNP of course is Starmer's high rating with Scots if that leads to SNP voters returning to Scottish Labour.
Independence of course is off the menu for the rest of this parliament, the Tory manifesto ruled out indyref2 for a generation and the actions of China today in effectively banning any Hong Kong autonomy and Spain in Catalonia means Boris looks relatively reasonable when he bans indyref2
Ah yes, Beijing and Madrid, those great beacons of liberty and democracy so admired by The Herd.
As for Starmer, I’m a big fan and always have been. As I’ve said many times before, if we are to successfully dissolve the Union to the mutual benefit of all the peoples of these islands, then we need mature, competent, compassionate and intelligent leaders of all the principal parties. Starmer is the best leader Labour have had in decades, and I warmly welcome him.
I’m not sure that I’d call his +5 to +10 among Scots voters “high ratings”, but that is a mere quibble. Some SNP voters might lend a vote to Starmer, but come IndyRef2 they’ll still be Yes.
It isn't so much that Starmer needs people who voted Yes in 2014 to vote No in any Indyref2, but those who voted No in 2014 but are tempted by indy following Brexit and Boris, to vote No again. And my suspicion is such swing voters like Starmer and would be favourable towards a Labour government led by him. To win Indyref what the SNP needs is a bogeyman, and Boris is ideal for that role. Problem is it's much less likely he'll grant you that second independence referendum than a Labour government (especially a Labour government reliant on the SNP to get through its programme) would. The 'SNP indyref2 paradox' is that you need a Labour government in power to grant you indyref2, but you need a Conservative one in charge in to win it.
Very astute. Food for thought.
But I have huge faith in BoZo the Clown. That man is pure gold. God knows what he’ll achieve before he’s finally kicked out, but the SNP haven’t had a better recruiting sergeant since Maggie herself.
And yet, and yet. If you are a Unionist, why vote SLAB when you can get untipped full fat Britnat in the SCUP? If you are a pro-indy type, and you have two competent-sounding legal types on roughly the same place in the L/R spectrum, why bother with SLAB when you can have one for indy when all the other has to offer is (if lucky and the English agree [edit]) federalism? It's not as if Brexit will be reversed by the UK - but it will likely be by an independent Scotland.
But Mr Flagg has a point, well several good ones. Maybe the ideal solution is for Mr Johnson to give the last and greatest performance of his career, and then be replaced by a minority Labour government.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
There is a lot of noise and fury from their critics I would agree. But there are some areas where they genuinely dropped a major bollock and it has had a very large impact on deaths. Asa such I think that looking at the basic numbers, it is probably justified to say they have performed badly overall whilst in some areas they have done well.
Too many people have died unnecessarily to be able to say the criticism is just normal political point scoring.
So if they worked for you..... (Which oddly of course they do in part)
Would you sack them, or would you ask them to pull their socks up?
So far as I can see it's the latter, and if they worked for me I'd be simply falling over myself with praise that they had coped.
Mate they are all useless, despite them working 16 hour days, 7 days a week for months. Despite them introducing a scheme which allows millions to stay at home and do nothing while they work their assess off. Despite the PM nearly dying and then coming back and continuing these long hours. Despite the NHS coping so well while in some of our European neighbours their health system collapsed. Its so much better in every other country than the UK. These other countries are not lying about their figures or anything. It must be amazing to be in India at the moment and have no income and die on your walk home. It must be amazing to be in Italy where they left the very old outside to die as they had no room in their hospitals. It must be wonderful to live in Spain and lie for hours on a hospital floor whilst awaiting treatment. And how about sitting in an ambulance queue for 9 hours in Moscow.
Every country has had horrendous issues with Care Homes but of course it is much worse in the UK then anywhere else.
If anyone is interested the Hay Festival has moved online and sessions are free - there are a couple of interesting looking ones on US politics this evening
Just had a pretty horrible experience at the local park. Two men were letting their rather nasty looking dogs run around in the part of the park set aside for children, which is clearly marked "no dogs". My wife politely asked if they were unaware of the rules and asked if they could move to the park reserved for dogs. She and I were met with a barge of threats and bad language. The kids started crying and we went home. Made me think of the people defending Mr Cummings for breaking the rules, for whom winning is everything and any idea of decency or fairness is for wimps and losers. What a nasty little country we are becoming, and what a message our rulers are sending.
This is brilliant, its Cumming's fault that your wife met some idiots down the park.
Do you believe Cummings story about the Castle expedition? I mean do you, personally, actually believe he was telling the truth?
Sort of.
In the full context of he felt like it was a good idea to drive to see if he was up to the pressures of driving then yes I do. I've done similar before. I think a half hour trip is a great idea before a cross country drive if you have any concerns and I've done that before.
On the out of context word of "eyesight" and an eyesight discussion alone? No.
Does that make sense?
Pure comedy gold. Again.
You, mr will no one think of the children, have in the past worried that your eyesight is not up to driving so you have shouted over to Mrs T: come on luv grab the kids we're going for a drive.
You've done that.
No, read again, not eyesight. I said not eyesight!
My specific word when I said about "eyesight" was "No."
Doing a half hour drive when I'm concerned about my stamina etc to do a five hour drive, yes I have done that.
Trying to think of other areas of human activity where a bloke might try something for a short time to check if he has the stamina to do it for much longer.
Not much springs to mind. Painting a ceiling maybe?
Literally anything.
There's a reason eg if someone is returning from injury in professional football they're generally put on as a substitute first for 20 to 30 minutes before being expected to do the full 90 minutes.
Bit different, that. The footballing example would be more a fitness test. You take a fitness test and if you pass you get picked for the upcoming match. So, was Cummings' drive to BC and back a sort of "fitness test" which he passed and thus earned his place in the team for the "match", being the big drive to London?
Yes, I think that works. It's bollox, of course, but it might have worked in court with a good barrister.
It's not different it's the exact same concept. A small test before an endurance event.
The fitness test before a match works better than the example of a sub. Because the sub is part of the match. Hence my post.
Sometimes wonder why I bother.
No the sub works better. The sub is actually part of the match in genuine match conditions just like a half hour drive is an actual drive on the road in general driving conditions.
The fitness test would be something you so before even getting on the road.
Ie do you feel fit to drive? If no, don't. If yes, small drive (sub) first.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
There is a lot of noise and fury from their critics I would agree. But there are some areas where they genuinely dropped a major bollock and it has had a very large impact on deaths. Asa such I think that looking at the basic numbers, it is probably justified to say they have performed badly overall whilst in some areas they have done well.
Too many people have died unnecessarily to be able to say the criticism is just normal political point scoring.
So if they worked for you..... (Which oddly of course they do in part)
Would you sack them, or would you ask them to pull their socks up?
So far as I can see it's the latter, and if they worked for me I'd be simply falling over myself with praise that they had coped.
In this case I would be looking at criminal proceedings. This goes way beyond doing a bad job and strays far into manslaughter territory.
And for those who say it could not be anticipated, lots of people did anticipate it, and shouted about it, and in the case of one council, actually did something about it.
I know it will all get lost in the mess of claimed hindsight and political deal making but this is one instance where people should have to answer for their failings with serious consequences. They killed people.
Just had a pretty horrible experience at the local park. Two men were letting their rather nasty looking dogs run around in the part of the park set aside for children, which is clearly marked "no dogs". My wife politely asked if they were unaware of the rules and asked if they could move to the park reserved for dogs. She and I were met with a barge of threats and bad language. The kids started crying and we went home. Made me think of the people defending Mr Cummings for breaking the rules, for whom winning is everything and any idea of decency or fairness is for wimps and losers. What a nasty little country we are becoming, and what a message our rulers are sending.
This is brilliant, its Cumming's fault that your wife met some idiots down the park.
Did I say that?
Surely Brexit and Priti Patel had a hand in this outrage ?
Just had a pretty horrible experience at the local park. Two men were letting their rather nasty looking dogs run around in the part of the park set aside for children, which is clearly marked "no dogs". My wife politely asked if they were unaware of the rules and asked if they could move to the park reserved for dogs. She and I were met with a barge of threats and bad language. The kids started crying and we went home. Made me think of the people defending Mr Cummings for breaking the rules, for whom winning is everything and any idea of decency or fairness is for wimps and losers. What a nasty little country we are becoming, and what a message our rulers are sending.
This is brilliant, its Cumming's fault that your wife met some idiots down the park.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
There is a lot of noise and fury from their critics I would agree. But there are some areas where they genuinely dropped a major bollock and it has had a very large impact on deaths. Asa such I think that looking at the basic numbers, it is probably justified to say they have performed badly overall whilst in some areas they have done well.
Too many people have died unnecessarily to be able to say the criticism is just normal political point scoring.
So if they worked for you..... (Which oddly of course they do in part)
Would you sack them, or would you ask them to pull their socks up?
So far as I can see it's the latter, and if they worked for me I'd be simply falling over myself with praise that they had coped.
Mate they are all useless, despite them working 16 hour days, 7 days a week for months. Despite them introducing a scheme which allows millions to stay at home and do nothing while they work their assess off. Despite the PM nearly dying and then coming back and continuing these long hours. Despite the NHS coping so well while in some of our European neighbours their health system collapsed. Its so much better in every other country than the UK. These other countries are not lying about their figures or anything. It must be amazing to be in India at the moment and have no income and die on your walk home. It must be amazing to be in Italy where they left the very old outside to die as they had no room in their hospitals. It must be wonderful to live in Spain and lie for hours on a hospital floor whilst awaiting treatment. And how about sitting in an ambulance queue for 9 hours in Moscow.
Every country has had horrendous issues with Care Homes but of course it is much worse in the UK then anywhere else.
I wonder if Nissan's decision had something to do with the UK's gigafactory plans.
There's a report in a property paper the government is looking for space to build this. It mentions Tesla but as I understand it they were choosing Germany
Nissan won't want to throw away the Sunderland plant. It's their second most efficient plant in Europe. They have a lot of (physical) capital invested there and a well trained workforce.
But it's hard to see how it would be able to compete long-term if the UK has tariff barriers with most of the factories that supply it.
In the medium term their business (if it still exists) will have transitioned entirely to electric vehicles. Plants for which are probably just as easy (possibly easier) to build from scratch.
There seems to be this misconception that electric cars and petrol cars are so insanely different, that you might as well throw everything away and start over.
That's not true.
I've been to the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA. It's an old General Motors plant, which Tesla bought along with the workforce.
That's right: it was cheaper to convert an existing plant (and workers) than build a new one.
Ultimately, while the propulsion mechanism is different, that's only - maybe - a third of the car. All the rest, whether sensors, wheels, bodywork, seats, seatbelts, windcreen, brakes is exactly the same. And that 66% (at least) of the vehicle that's not the electric propulsion system is bought from exactly the same suppliers (Veleo, Autoliv, Johnson Controls, etc.) as in regular cars.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
There is a lot of noise and fury from their critics I would agree. But there are some areas where they genuinely dropped a major bollock and it has had a very large impact on deaths. Asa such I think that looking at the basic numbers, it is probably justified to say they have performed badly overall whilst in some areas they have done well.
Too many people have died unnecessarily to be able to say the criticism is just normal political point scoring.
So if they worked for you..... (Which oddly of course they do in part)
Would you sack them, or would you ask them to pull their socks up?
So far as I can see it's the latter, and if they worked for me I'd be simply falling over myself with praise that they had coped.
In this case I would be looking at criminal proceedings. This goes way beyond doing a bad job and strays far into manslaughter territory.
And for those who say it could not be anticipated, lots of people did anticipate it, and shouted about it, and in the case of one council, actually did something about it.
I know it will all get lost in the mess of claimed hindsight and political deal making but this is one instance where people should have to answer for their failings with serious consequences. They killed people.
Killed yes, but saved others too.
Very interesting you're so heavily against my laissez faire view. I don't see it, but you've certainly set me thinking.
Just had a pretty horrible experience at the local park. Two men were letting their rather nasty looking dogs run around in the part of the park set aside for children, which is clearly marked "no dogs". My wife politely asked if they were unaware of the rules and asked if they could move to the park reserved for dogs. She and I were met with a barge of threats and bad language. The kids started crying and we went home. Made me think of the people defending Mr Cummings for breaking the rules, for whom winning is everything and any idea of decency or fairness is for wimps and losers. What a nasty little country we are becoming, and what a message our rulers are sending.
This is brilliant, its Cumming's fault that your wife met some idiots down the park.
Did I say that?
Surely Brexit and Priti Patel had a hand in this outrage ?
My wife and children were left in tears. I'm glad you're finding it so funny.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
Compared with whom?
Trump: yes.
Most other European countries: not so clever, I suspect.
Caveat: it is still too early for conclusions (except about Trump). This thing has a long way to go, and the data will take months even after that.
Would it be wildly laughable to suggest that the UK Government is actually doing a pretty decent job?
The civil servants, the politicians, and even the Dominic Cummings'. I'd imagine that all stripes of Government might do much the same, but nonetheless this is good work in tricky times.
There is a lot of noise and fury from their critics I would agree. But there are some areas where they genuinely dropped a major bollock and it has had a very large impact on deaths. Asa such I think that looking at the basic numbers, it is probably justified to say they have performed badly overall whilst in some areas they have done well.
Too many people have died unnecessarily to be able to say the criticism is just normal political point scoring.
I think there are three areas where the UK government (and advisors) can be seen as having performed poorly:
1. Travel from abroad: we should have shut it down, or if not shut it down, at least had quarantines for inbound passengers. This probably led to us have five times the number of seed cases that we could have had.
2. Discharging sick people into care homes: thousands of people - maybe tens of thousands - died because of this policy.
3. A failure on PPE: not getting the right masks and equipment *and* not giving the right advice.
Do you believe Cummings story about the Castle expedition? I mean do you, personally, actually believe he was telling the truth?
Sort of.
In the full context of he felt like it was a good idea to drive to see if he was up to the pressures of driving then yes I do. I've done similar before. I think a half hour trip is a great idea before a cross country drive if you have any concerns and I've done that before.
On the out of context word of "eyesight" and an eyesight discussion alone? No.
Does that make sense?
Pure comedy gold. Again.
You, mr will no one think of the children, have in the past worried that your eyesight is not up to driving so you have shouted over to Mrs T: come on luv grab the kids we're going for a drive.
You've done that.
No, read again, not eyesight. I said not eyesight!
My specific word when I said about "eyesight" was "No."
Doing a half hour drive when I'm concerned about my stamina etc to do a five hour drive, yes I have done that.
Ah. Ok. How would you know from a half hour drive whether you had the stamina for a five hour drive?
You just know. Trust your instincts. EG do you feel up to continue driving or do you feel exhausted?
As I said when we first discussed this, it was a tip I got from an RAC guy when I was 18, inexperienced and at university and I've followed it since - if you're feeling a bit rusty then a half hour drive is good exercise for both you and your car.
Ummm... But wouldn't you want the half hour drive to end back at your own place? Otherwise you find yourself marooned half an hour (at least) from home and unfit to drive.
More seriously, even if this was a perfectly understandable...
...Given it was combined with a bit of a walk around Barnard Castle at the other end, then it certainly wasn't in line with the rules.
The weird thing is that you were allowed to travel for the purposes of your daily exercise provided the travel was proportionate which most forces interpreted as being no longer than you spent walking. If he had simply said that on his wife's birthday they decided to go for a nice socially distanced walk around the castle I don't think there would have been anything wrong with that. It was this ridiculous testing my eyesight story that has pissed people off because it was so obviously false.
It is hard to credit. Do you have any theory at all as to why he came out with that?
Unfortunately I am not a psychiatrist and I gave up wondering why the hell my clients said the absurd things that they did a long time ago.
Evening all, just delurking momentarily but hugely enjoying the discourse on here as ever. In response to this, I think the first thing to discount is the idea that he just made this "dog ate my homework" excuse off the cuff, or that he was so stupid to believe that the public would swallow it. Two things we know about Cummings is that he wargames everything, and whatever you may think of him as a person, he's definitely not stupid. The other key point is the one DavidL made is absolutely correct, at the time he made the trip there was nothing stopping him driving there and back for a walk.
So why the story? To me there are two very obvious parallels. This was firstly an unnecessary thing to do that on the surface - rather like the proroguing of Parliament. Secondly, it was an obvious lie or bending of the truth but one that could never be completely proven to be so - rather like the £350m on the bus. And as with both of those examples, I am certain that his reason for doing so was to trigger the "other side" - in this instance the press and the opposition, with the aim of getting both to completely overreach and reveal themselves in the case of the press to be unreasonable zealots, and in the case of the labour party to enable their apparent hypocrisy with regard to the likes of Stephen Kinnock to be revealed.
I would say that Cummings will feel that the press have played their role to perfection, and the tweet from the civil service will have been a nice bonus. The labour party, on the other hand, have played this very wisely, and Keir Starmer is certainly impressing with his political judgement - very welcome news for all of us.
I'm not in any way praising Cummings (if it were me I'd have stepped down for sure) but it is his modus operandi, and I hardly need to remind people on here how catastrophic a blunder both the bus and the proroguing were seen as being at the time, nor how successfully they eventually turned out.
Cummings has managed to get @MaxPB to tear up his Conservative membership card.
I'm struggling to see how he has done anything other than damage faith in the government.
Comments
If everyone is concerned about Cummings causing a distraction, why cause an even worse distraction from important announcements by continuing to ask about him.
I can support your theory that their uncompromising (and perhaps exacerbating?) response has been purposely designed to throw oil on the fire, but I can't think why, and I think your proposed theories aren't strong enough. It strikes me that either an awful story has just slipped by the press like the Alabama out of its moorings, or they want all this opprobrium for..some..reason. That reason I cannot fathom. The reason they deliberately pissed everyone off before was because they wanted Parliament dissolved and an election called. Assuming they don't want that again, it would have to be another hoped-for event.
Talk about trapped in a bubble.
But there was no flexibility. There needed to be the option created early on of Nightingale hospitals being remodelled as care wards, half-way houses for those who would return to their care homes - but only once Covid-free. It was as if all those involved breathed a huge sigh of relief that the worst was over when the NHS didn't get over-run.
It wasn't.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266047584038256640?s=20
I was just commenting to my wife you can have no doubt that Boris and his advisors had gamed the questions, and the journalists walked into the trap
Three journalists each trying a different clever way to drag him and Whitty in - childish game playing.
He's doing very serious job and people are taking attention away from important things he has to say.
But Mr Flagg has a point, well several good ones. Maybe the ideal solution is for Mr Johnson to give the last and greatest performance of his career, and then be replaced by a minority Labour government.
Every country has had horrendous issues with Care Homes but of course it is much worse in the UK then anywhere else.
https://tinyurl.com/y7fdu7bd
The fitness test would be something you so before even getting on the road.
Ie do you feel fit to drive? If no, don't. If yes, small drive (sub) first.
And for those who say it could not be anticipated, lots of people did anticipate it, and shouted about it, and in the case of one council, actually did something about it.
I know it will all get lost in the mess of claimed hindsight and political deal making but this is one instance where people should have to answer for their failings with serious consequences. They killed people.
That's not true.
I've been to the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA. It's an old General Motors plant, which Tesla bought along with the workforce.
That's right: it was cheaper to convert an existing plant (and workers) than build a new one.
Ultimately, while the propulsion mechanism is different, that's only - maybe - a third of the car. All the rest, whether sensors, wheels, bodywork, seats, seatbelts, windcreen, brakes is exactly the same. And that 66% (at least) of the vehicle that's not the electric propulsion system is bought from exactly the same suppliers (Veleo, Autoliv, Johnson Controls, etc.) as in regular cars.
Very interesting you're so heavily against my laissez faire view. I don't see it, but you've certainly set me thinking.
Trump: yes.
Most other European countries: not so clever, I suspect.
Caveat: it is still too early for conclusions (except about Trump). This thing has a long way to go, and the data will take months even after that.
1. Travel from abroad: we should have shut it down, or if not shut it down, at least had quarantines for inbound passengers. This probably led to us have five times the number of seed cases that we could have had.
2. Discharging sick people into care homes: thousands of people - maybe tens of thousands - died because of this policy.
3. A failure on PPE: not getting the right masks and equipment *and* not giving the right advice.
I'm struggling to see how he has done anything other than damage faith in the government.