Dominic Cummings

Rishi Sunak, Dominic Grieve and Michael Gove are good guys. Yes, this is very interesting. I agree about Grieve, I think he is a man who had the courage to put his principles before his political career and therefore paid the price during Johnson's cull of the non-believers. Sunak I don't know much about to be honest, he is being praised for the furlough scheme, but surely any Chancellor would have done the same? As for Gove, well Cummings and him worked together to wreck the Education system, he has been of very low profile lately and he does have a history of sticking knives in backs. I also agree that we, as a country should not have been faced with a choice of Corbyn or Johnson, especially in a time of crisis. Mind you, Corbyn has been very useful, many on GN bring him up again and again in their whataboutery, so he obviously does have his uses as a deflection tool when Johnson is especially useless.

I still think it’s shocking that the UK’s deaths per 100,000 were actually worse than the US and India. I think only Belgium and SAN Marino did worse. Countries such as US may have more deaths but proportionally we did worse. The only thing we’re good at was on the medical side - vaccine and treatments. This week’s Private Eye has a very good article by MD about the current state of the pandemic. We should not be complacent and I hope that any investigation will get to the root of the Care Homes debacle, PPE and the ridiculous and costly Track and (sunk without) Trace. This government has a lot to answer for.

I don’t understand why people think that because he lied about some things, that exonerates the Government? The fact that he clearly has lots of records will be damaging, however much people want to suppress the information.

I think Cummings will always put Cummings first and would sell himself to the highest bidder (or whoever he thinks will be in power next).

over a
over as

tickingbird

Apart from anything he’s saying the sheer venom and determination to bring down Boris and Hancock is breathtaking. I’m not siding with anyone but what a monumental error of judgement BJ made when he kicked him out, especially if it was down to Carrie. He should have eased him out gradually because “revenge is a dish best served cold” has never been so apt.

Where did he come over a venomous? He seemed pretty calm and collected to me.

Just attacking him personally won't help. We all know his failings. We need Johnson to move his backside and give us an inquiry. Nothing else will get to the truth or give us something to build on.

I know the Guardian isn't always that respected, but it's the first fact-checking article I could find.

This is quite an interesting fact-check of some of the things Cummings said:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/26/dominic-cummings-evidence-to-mps-on-covid-crisis-fact-checked

It's hard to deny that some of it is true.

Gannygangan

PippaZ

Gannygangan

How can you be uninterested in how other countries have coped, WW2?

Oh do stop the deflection. This is about us and our government.

Deflection?

Don't you like to be reminded that numerous countries saw massive death rates in nursing/ care homes?

Obviously not.

You're still doing it! You repeat fallacious argument after fallacious argument. It seems to be all you can come up with. I'm interested in our massive death rates and the lies about protecting our care homes. You seem to be putting your Johnson faith ahead of our country and our people.

But what is new?

Lin52

Alegrias1

Do you think the things he is saying aren't true Lin52?

Do you think No 10 was completely on top of the situation? Do you think Hancock had his finger on the pulse and everything was under control? Do you think Test and Trace has been a success?

No madam, I don’t think any Government was on top of this, look at Germany , so good in the beginning, now higher numbers, look at France higher number, etc. Have you ever dealt with a pandemic before, non of us have, and that includes the Government. I think Cummins is out for revenge, lying, more than likely, why do you think he’s telling the truth, oh yes, you don’t like a Conservative Government.

Higher than what?

Germany has a bigger population than the UK, but still has fewer deaths in total. France has also had fewer deaths than the UK.

Have you ever dealt with a pandemic before, non of us have, and that includes the Government.

Very true of Europe, Lin, but Asian countries had dealt with highly infectious and fatal diseases, such as MERS and SARS, knew what to do to suppress similar diseases, and did it.

Why did European countries fail to take notice of what they were doing? Cummings hinted (broadly ) at racist motives here in the UK. 'Asian people do as they are told..'

UK governments are supposed to plan for emergencies. Their function is to keep the population safe as well as everything else. There had actually been an exercise in implementing our 'pandemic plan' in 2015. It pointed up all sorts of shortcomings which were never followed up and rectified. This is a long term failure of tory government. There should have been something in place as a matter of course, but there wasn't.

Are you really so naive as to believe that governments make it all up as they go along? That there aren't contingency plans in existence to meet all sorts of situations?

There was one thing he said which I wholeheartedly agreed with - that there is something seriously wrong with an electoral system which offered the British public the choice of Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister when both of these men were patently unsuitable for the job.

We desperately need constitutional reform and a move to democratic voting by proportional representation to prevent this appallingly stark choice being imposed on us ever again.

Peter Stefanovic
@PeterStefanovi2
“I think the Health Secretary should have been fired for at least fifteen twenty things including lying to everybody in multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the cabinet room and publicly” Dominic Cummings

I think this must be so painful for those who lost loved ones. In truth nearly all governments were totally unprepared but I do feel that the UK Government excelled in making a complete mess of it all!

varian

He had a very black and white view of the leading Tories - Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock are useless liars.

Rishi Sunak, Dominic Grieve and Michael Gove are good guys.

Just a thought, I may be wrong, but is it possible that he wants to keep in the good books of the next Tory leader?

Yes, I think that's exactly what he's doing .

GillT57

The attempts by some on GN to defend their beloved Johnson by either attempting to describe this as a nine day wonder, or just revenge by a sacked man, or even worse, by dragging Corbyn into it are a wonder to behold.

I do hope you're not including me as a fan of Johnson. Because I'm not.

Alegrias1

Do you think the things he is saying aren't true Lin52?

Do you think No 10 was completely on top of the situation? Do you think Hancock had his finger on the pulse and everything was under control? Do you think Test and Trace has been a success?

No madam, I don’t think any Government was on top of this, look at Germany , so good in the beginning, now higher numbers, look at France higher number, etc. Have you ever dealt with a pandemic before, non of us have, and that includes the Government. I think Cummins is out for revenge, lying, more than likely, why do you think he’s telling the truth, oh yes, you don’t like a Conservative Government.

He had a very black and white view of the leading Tories - Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock are useless liars.

Rishi Sunak, Dominic Grieve and Michael Gove are good guys.

Just a thought, I may be wrong, but is it possible that he wants to keep in the good books of the next Tory leader?

JaneJudge

my husband has said he cant wait for Peston tonight

Agreed. And I eagerly anticipate Have I Got News For you!!

lemongrove

Anybody could give a sensible clear eyed description of what went wrong after the event....which is all that Cummings is doing now.

So are we to assume that you don't want an enquiry into covid19? The one that Johnson has promised for sometime in the future? No point if it is all going to be people describing what went wrong after the event is there?

GillT57

Cummings, his wife and Boris go back a long way to their days in Private Eye, so how much is real and how much is staged for entertainment (ours)! WRONG. Massive difference between The Spectator and Private Eye. Poor Ian Hislop will be having a fit.

The attempts by some on GN to defend their beloved Johnson by either attempting to describe this as a nine day wonder, or just revenge by a sacked man, or even worse, by dragging Corbyn into it are a wonder to behold.

my husband has said he cant wait for Peston tonight

Cummings, his wife and Boris go back a long way to their days in Private Eye, so how much is real and how much is staged for entertainment (ours)! WRONG. Massive difference between The Spectator and Private Eye. Poor Ian Hislop will be having a fit.

Ticking - that's what I was thinking. Massive mistake cutting Cummings loose.

varian

I was glad to hear Cummings apologise for the "Barnard Castle debacle" and many other mistakes he had made as Johnson's SPAD>

I am still awaiting an apology for all the criminality and deception he employed as the mastermind behind Vote Leave.

The damage done to this country by brexit will in the long term be seen as many times worse than the mistakes he made in Downing Street.

He did go so far as to recognise that those voting remain made a rational choice??