I think that a lot of those who like and dislike him most understand him least.

I don’t think he’s what the alt-right fanboys think - although there’s always a danger of a contrarian going full-blown Morrissey. And I don’t think Remainiacs who conflate him with Farage or Rees-Mogg get it either. He’s a scruffy, grumpy, vain ideas magpie rather than an ideologue, imo. Finally, there’s a difference between [uhaving[/u a genius (and three word slogans puts you more in a category with world’s greatest shove ha’penny player than alongside Einstein or Mozart, imo) and [ubeing[/u some sort of general sage. In some ways he’s clearly a bit of a dipstick. Like nearly everybody else, including me, in some ways.

As an ‘outsider’ he liked to move fast and break things (now there’s an obvious joke!). As de facto Prime Minister, I’d quite like to see what his post-brexit, post-covid plan is. It might very well be cack... but it is like opening a mystery box, it could be interesting. I’m pretty sure Johnson has no plan, and I don’t want an unctuous git like Gove or dimwits like Raab or Patel pulling the strings. I’m close certain they’ll be cack.

Quote ="Scarlet Pimpernell"If Hancock did so well against Preston why was he so quick to cut him off before asking a second question, could it be he did not want to be questioned further about his own circumstances. Your post merely proves my point that you are desperate to latch onto even the smallest hope that the government are doing a good job which of course they are not. The problem is that the government’s failures have resulted in unnecessary deaths and this is something that many will not forget, even if you try to ignore it.'" Give it up. That was a belting 'up yours' to Preston, who's been asking stupid questions for days. He was a cock at No.10 yesterday and came on today trying to be a right smart-. It was brilliant. Hancock may as well have said, "get fecked Preston". His eye contact with the camera makes it even funnier. https://twitter.com/SocialM85897394/sta ... 3984104451 for anyone who hasn't seen it. (I have no idea who 'The Core' is, it's simply the first copy of it I saw). Very clearly they're not taking the media on with this. Both Boris yesterday and Hancock today, whenever journalists have tried to be clever or too cutting, they've been cut short - the usual 'would you like to come back on that' has largely been absent. You on the left forget this government has massive support. There's also a reason [url=https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mediascum&src=trend_click#mediascum[/url is trending right now. And there's a reason there are almost 11k responses to Adam Boulton and his post "Anyone who refers to Media "scum" on my Tweet feed will be blocked. It is not an acceptable way to refer to anyone". I very rarely bother with ter but it's been delicious watching the left whipped up in a frenzy and the rest winding them up. I would never normally condone this sort of aggression but feck it, the gloves appear to be off.

Quote ="Scarlet Pimpernell"If Hancock did so well against Preston why was he so quick to cut him off before asking a second question, could it be he did not want to be questioned further about his own circumstances. Your post merely proves my point that you are desperate to latch onto even the smallest hope that the government are doing a good job which of course they are not. The problem is that the government’s failures have resulted in unnecessary deaths and this is something that many will not forget, even if you try to ignore it.'" Give it up. That was a belting 'up yours' to Preston, who's been asking stupid questions for days. He was a cock at No.10 yesterday and came on today trying to be a right smart-. It was brilliant. Hancock may as well have said, "get fecked Preston". His eye contact with the camera makes it even funnier. https://twitter.com/SocialM85897394/sta ... 3984104451 for anyone who hasn't seen it. (I have no idea who 'The Core' is, it's simply the first copy of it I saw). Very clearly they're not taking the media on with this. Both Boris yesterday and Hancock today, whenever journalists have tried to be clever or too cutting, they've been cut short - the usual 'would you like to come back on that' has largely been absent. You on the left forget this government has massive support. There's also a reason [url=https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mediascum&src=trend_click#mediascum[/url is trending right now. And there's a reason there are almost 11k responses to Adam Boulton and his post "Anyone who refers to Media "scum" on my Tweet feed will be blocked. It is not an acceptable way to refer to anyone". I very rarely bother with ter but it's been delicious watching the left whipped up in a frenzy and the rest winding them up. I would never normally condone this sort of aggression but feck it, the gloves appear to be off.

I've already admitted that I usually don't get involved in these debates but as someone with a very open mind politically, I sat and watched yesterday's statement and questions and at no point in that extended hour did anyone look like a 'winner'.

Sinister? Oh please, get some perspective. Have you seen the footage outside Cummings' home this last week? The screeching mob? The pack of paps? The abuse? The threats? All with a 4 year old in the home? That's what I call sinister, not a magazine article. I have no truck with the article avoiding any mention of Durham. But then I'm sure you find the behaviour of the street mob acceptable - it's Dominic Cummings, after all, eh? He's a Brexiteer, he looks a bit dodgy. It's ok if it's one of the enemy, yes? Have a giggle over it, yes?

You say Kinnock and Jenrick "presumably" visited their parents with shopping supplies. You don't know that. You openly presume that. Their stories proffered that excuse and as it happens I agree it's fair enough to accept them as entirely reasonable. Interestingly though, you accept their stories on blind faith, but not Cummings. I wonder why.

What about Tahir Ali? Neil Ferguson? Catherine Calderwood? Other such as Kyle Walker? What about Wizeb, who has boasted he broke lockdown laws at least a few times for some rancid barmaid. You and the rest remain curiously silent on this despite responding to a post - in fact I've made several posts - calling you all out. Yet a man takes his family into isolation and you're in a rabid hysteria. I wonder why.

Hypocrites. All of you. You, wrencat, pimpernell, willzay, jukesays whoever else - until you condemn all those I've named and everyone else doing as they please including crowds on beaches and in parks, you're nothing more than the worst kind of hypocrites.

Let's play a game. Pretend you're in this situation:
A global pandemic is spreading fast, a new unknown virus.
Your wife becomes ill. Most of your colleagues are ill or absent. Your boss is ill. You're probably infected.
Your child is 4. You begin to think about what would happen if you both and were incapacitated, given the speed with which CV19 can hit.
You're lucky enough to have a family estate with a separate house perfect to isolate in, and with family around to care for your child if necessary.

As it happens I made similar plans back in March for if my wife and I became ill. It would require one of us travelling some distance to my cousin's house to drop my child off with her. Is that unacceptable? Yep, the rules permit exceptions in cases of childcare concerns for precisely reasons such as this - accept it, give over crying, it's pathetic.

If any of you say the better option would be for him to stay in London and potentially end up handing his child over to someone outside the family, you're lying.

However. while the rationale for taking his family to Durham is reasonable - I agree, the trip to Barnard Castle is a stretch of the imagination and he should have held his hands up and apologised. Clearly a trip out. No excuses there. Admit it, say sorry and move on. But unless you're demanding the resignation of everyone caught outdoors at that time, you're a hypocrite. And you aren't, so yes, you're a hypocrite.

Several days on and the media are increasingly furious that their target - who they've always despised - is still defying them. I'm enjoying every moment. Cummings may yet go, but the frustration on the left is wonderful.

They tip toe around the edges of decency and threats, never actually delivering either, but just leaving enough vagueness to then be able to step back and say that's not "actually" what we said. All along knowing they were stoking up the public (both sides) into a frenzy and creating division.
They spend most of their time staying "On message" and discrediting anyone who they are threatened by with smoke and mirrors.
Fair play to them, they're very good at it.
But if they think "The remaoners" "The Lefties", "The mainstream media" who theyve spent 3/4 years discrediting are going to take their BS and standby after the lies and tricks theyve used they're in cuckoo land.
Ita a dead straight forward issue.
Everyone knows what he did was wrong, theres 71% who say he was wrong , and theres a large % of the other 29% who know hes wrong and wont admit it. Theyve spent the last 3 years or so defending these 2 and the rest for pretty much one reason to "Get Brexit done" that they're quite prepared to basically just ride it out on any topic in favour of the government with fingers on ears when they dint want to hear something or just staying on message to brain wash.

Said it before, do I think hes made the worst mistake in the world, No. Would I have given him benefit of the doubt if hed been open and with what had happened and said you know what in reflection I could have done things better, Maybe.
But the BS over the last 2 days, the blame anyone else and whataboutism another distraction techniques and the revisionist history they're trying to rewrite, Nah, they're digging a deeper hole and as far as I'm concerned its exposing them for what they are.

As I've already posted, Cronus. I'm no fan of doorstepping and confrontational behaviour, but this was the kind of behaviour Cummings and Johnson were stirring up during their 'Get Brexit Done' campaign, which was leading to threats against MPs of all stripes. Divisive language and confrontational rhetotric was the plan. Dom is merely reaping what he's sown. He can now sleep in the bed he shat in for all I care.

You really are comparing and contrasting a verbal exchange between 2 adults,together,in a building,with - scores of people breaching social distancing,attempting to shove microphones and cameras under the nose of a person trying to reach his car,outside of a private house containing a wife and 4 yrs old child - with many of the throng screaming at him.

The sooner Russia bomb us the better. This country has gone.

No. I'm simply using that as an example of someone calling Cummings out about his divisive campaign.

Do a quick Google search for articles about 'death threats to MPs in 2019'. Fill your boots.

And the rest were little angels, were they? As an example you could do with looking at some of the stuff Jess Phillips has come out with, for example - you know, the Jess Phillips who tried to preach about divisive language in Parliament and got slapped down. They're all at it. The young left in particular on our TV screens are vile - Owen Jones and a couple of females who pop up on TV from time to time (I forget their names, one is Asian). Nothing but hatred spews from their mouths.

I get it, they're angry. They just keep losing and simply cannot grasp why everyone doesn't agree with them. Nor can they accept it. If someone disagrees they must be silenced - hence the rise of 'no-platforming'. Reasoned debate is an alien concept.

As a Leaver and Tory voter (at present, I haven't always been) I've had no end of abuse on here and to my face. Racist, xenophobe, nazi, etc, etc yaawwwn. Leavers have had every insult under the sun since 2016, and Tory voters have had it and more. Why do you think the 'quiet Tory' is even a thing?

I'm a big boy, I can handle it and more than give it back. Words really don't bother me. But for the left to complain about divisive language is laughable.

It does seem to be burning through it rather quickly though.

The problem they’ve got is that a lot of that support has been built on simple, powerful messaging. When you’re reduced to the equivalent of referring to the section 26c, paragraph 3 to justify your actions that is for a different audience. That is fine for people like me, who like nuance and precision, and who will annoy their spouses with terms like ‘internally consistent’. But we’re already pee’d off about bigredbuscrapmathsgate. Which didn’t even matter, it’d have have worked just as well with an honest number for the intended audience. Similarly, why not just write a new blog?

A thing about winning an election and becoming a government, is that you’re not on the outside flinging turds anymore, you’re on the inside being splattered with them. Attacking a position is much easier than defending one. Mercurial might work in opposition but government would be a grind even without a pandemic. For their own sakes they need the gloves to be kept on as much as possible. They have to make a choice on the EU negotiations that, whatever it is, will be unpopular with large sections of the country in about 5 weeks. All this means that’ll be worse for them.

Fanboy Flashman saying Cummings should have just admitted his jolly out to Barnard Castle is sweet in its naivety, even if he's the only one thick enough on here to not understand the consequence that admission would have brought.

Approval rating for Johnson down 20pts in four days. The Government down 16pts in 24 hours.

YouGov poll today had 59% wanting him to resign. 52% of Leavers want him to resign.

He can stay as long as he wants for me. He’s ripping the reputation of the Conservative Party to shreds. Which is funny, because he isn’t even a member.



One of his friends quoted in the FT today

No apologies for stealing the below:

The media’s Dominic Cummings story has completely collapsed. He did NOT go to Durham a second time, which was reported on the front page of the Sunday Mirror and the Observer. He did NOT have any physical contact with family members. The police did NOT talk to the Cummings family about the Covid lockdown guidelines. Cummings did NOT carry on doing things that everyone else had stopped doing — he even missed the funeral of his uncle who died from Covid. He did NOT leave his London home for leisure reasons — he left it because he was receiving death threats as a result of media demonisation. He was very ill, his wife was ill, and at one point his child was taken to hospital in an ambulance in Durham.

His family has had a rough time and the media have told lie after lie about him. The scandal is not Cummings’ behaviour - it is the collapse of ethics and objectivity in the British media.

Newspapers have run frontpage stories about Dominic Cummings that are not true. A mob turned up outside his home to shout about people who have died from Covid-19. Left-wing activists parked a truck outside his front door and blasted out grim news reports about death with no regard for the young child inside the house. He’s been reported to the police numerous times by members of the Twittermob. I’m sorry, but if you still think the most shocking thing is that a family drove from London to Durham, you are not paying attention.


...but you lot crack on, Dominic Cummings is clearly the most evil person in the UK today for doing a bit of driving, and the media are just 'doing their job' in an entirely reasonable manner. Stay outraged.

Normally that’d look like a betrayal by a so-called friend. However, I suspect DC says it to their faces.

We’ll all project our own narratives onto it, but when Hancock wearily answers Peston in that clip and looks down the camera I imagine him looking sad and angry, not at the inane question but at having to spend his breath defending a man he knows despises him and who will happily hang him out to dry if it is convenient when the inquiry comes around. I’m really struggling to pick a side here!

Not a fan of Jess Phillips, she's only interested in Jess Phillips. Nor am I a fan of the young left, or the equally vile young right. Political rent-a-gobs like Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar, Grace Blakeley, Darren Grimes, Tom Harwood, Isabel Oakshotte, et al. They just stir it up for stirring it up's sake. Typical of the social media 'look at me' generation. I'd happily bang all their heads together.

You are a godsend because you want to believe in his honesty. I can’t believe you actually believe he was worried about his security when full lockdown was in place and therefore the streets were empty. I noticed he had a Police escort today which I am sure he could of put in place before he left. I was under the impression his Uncle died in London but by that time he was already heading to Durham.
I suppose you also believe his eye story and why would he return to work after running home fearing his wife had the virus. This case is so full of holes even you should be able to see through it.

Part of me thinks they know they’ve been played for idiots but their pride won’t allow them to admit it.

So they double down on the ridiculousness. A bit like Gove today.

That's exactly it. It's a pride thing. They're so committed to the cause, they'll morally bankrupt themselves fighting for it. They remind me of those gamblers who put £90 in a fruit machine for a £50 jackpot.

Gove was ridiculous today. I'm pretty sure he was coked up to the eyeballs. Even Nick Ferrari was struggling not to pee his pants.

You sir are wrong.

Glad that I'm included in your hypocrite list as I would hate to miss out.
Nobody needs to condemn anyone else as this is about THE top Government advisor, driving a bus through his own rules and then having the backing of the PM for his indecisions

Despite many inaccuracies in the press, the core story is absolutely correct.

He didn't need to leave his London home


He certainly didn't need to go for a day out in Barnard Castle on his wife's birthday to check his eyesight


Boris didn't nee to tell the electorate that they were confused


And if we accept blatant lies from Bojo & Dom -where do we actually go from there.



The childcare issue is a cover story and everything has been contrived to fit the various sightings - get over it



As for being a target, I would suggest that, up until now, he's absolutely loved all of the attention so, dont try with your own distraction tactics, they're pitiful.
Johnson is sliding down the polls faster than a fireman on call so, at this point, let Cummings stay on, he's Labour's strongest asset

I am sorry but I owe Cronus an apology because I couldn’t find his post denigrating the Mail for their false allegation that the leader of the opposition arranged for a photo opportunity during the Thursday night clap for the NHS. I am sure he/she will be able to produce their post condemning the right wing media.

For the umpteenth time - I don't read the Mail, nor have I for probably 20 years, so I have no clue what you're talking about. I follow no right wing media. Almost exclusively I follow the left. Feel free to post the link.

Apology accepted.

Well today has been interesting. Some posters I hoped might offer decent replies failed entirely. Others I knew could only provide the usual guff rose reliably to the occasion.

Mild Rover and King Street, at least you responded somewhat to some of the points made to you. The rest - pathetic. Giddy with the media maelstrom you repeat the hype with apparently zero capability for independent thought, or - even allowing for a dubious trip to Barnard Castle - zero empathy for the human aspect of a scared family with a young child, infected with a largely unknown virus. Wrencat - very disappointed.

And not a single one of you - again - have the cojones to condemn anyone else caught breaking (or boasting of breaking) lockdown, nor the mob harassing a family home. Hypocrites. Cowards.

Where's your vilification of Ian Blackford, for example, who, 3 days after lockdown travelled 600 miles home from London for no other reason than...errrmmm...and apparently went into isolation, but who then posted a pic on the way to an interview only 11 days into his, erm, "isolation". I'm sure you're all outraged!

Quite the backlash going on in case you've missed it. Twatter is growing on me. #mediascum

If it is, maybe delve into the Prof. John Ashton timeline of events which I've posted on the coronavirus and sport thread.

Cronus, I genuinely think you are losing sight of Mr Cummings actions and in trying to skirt round it / justify it, you appear to be adopting the very same tactics used by Tory central.
Yes, others have broken the lockdown rules, for all sorts of reasons - we can agree on that.
However, Cummings of all the people in the UK, has been involved in the rules governing lockdown, the advice to stay at home (in London in his case) and front and centre of the government message.
Your #mediascum is just fecking hilarious, although this is being driven by his supporters.
Where were you when the media have mistreated so many others in the past - is this hypocrisy on your part



Lets keep this on topic and stop with the multi distraction stuff, it's laughable.

I notice that you dont sight those in public service that have resigned for lesser breeches of the lockdown rules but, that would be to send "your man" to the gallows. More hypocrisy ??

In his Q&A he boasted about making and taking policy decisions without reference to the Prime Minister. Sounds like he's a bit more involved in government than they're letting on. Advisor? He's practically running the show. I thought we'd had enough of unelected bureaucrats?