Dominic Cummings

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

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

over a
over as

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).

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 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.

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.

Sighs.

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.

How many times?

I do not have any faith in Boris Johnson. Never have. Never will do. I did not vote for him. \

You might think my arguments are fallacious. I don't.

PippaZ

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.

Johnson should have sacked Cummings after Barbara Castle, or been clear if as Cummings now claims, he left London for security reasons.
When Cummings was given the press conference in the garden, rather than his P45, many suggested the only reason he wasn’t sacked was because he knew where the bodies were buried.

I don’t think they’re listening Ganny

Every country should have an inquiry about what they can do better next time, and the better countries will do.
How often in Europe have we had a pandemic? Answer, not for 100 years, and the Spanish flu. Consider the population in this small country.Did the government get everything right and at exactly the right time? Answer, no of course not and neither did other governments.The inquiry is to sharpen up decisions and responses for next time round, not to indulge in politician ‘bashing’ from the comfort of the armchair.

We have have Bernard Castle and now we have Barbara Castle
?

It would have been easier all round if Cummings had stuck to Durham.

Callistemon

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).

That doesn't mean he isn't telling the truth.

We need an enquiry and we need it now.

Gannygangan, any argument which doesn’t conform to the views presented by more forceful posters will be seen as fallacious.
We all know that the LP would have done it better, don’t we?
The fact that I didn’t vote for BJ and we may not think he made a good job of some parts of the pandemic is immaterial because of the implication that others, with no more experience, would have done better.
After sorting out the government’s wrongdoings, I’d also like to see an investigation into the behaviour of some of
the GBP, who have throughout the pandemic, contributed to the rapidity of virus spread and the confusion over which rules and guidelines they choose to follow or not. I’ve read statements like:
“I make my own decisions”,
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t go out as often as I want”
“I don’t have to wear a mask, because they don’t help”
“He didn’t do it so I don’t see why I must”
“I have a holiday home so I won’t be mixing so I should be allowed to travel”
“The schools should be open. It’s ridiculous to keep them closed.”
“The schools should be closed because the variant is spreading. It’s ridiculous keeping them open.”
Etc

Great post Mollygo ??

Gannygangan, any argument which doesn’t conform to the views presented by more forceful posters will be seen as fallacious.

Thank you, Mollygo

Very true!

Or even better Mollygo - it’s all a hoax, a plot by Bill Gates ?

lemongrove

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

Honestly. please stop making excuses for them. Very stron warnings were given by experts in 2019, about the fact the Government was totally unprepared, in multiple ways, and had to stock PPE in time. Warnings have been given for a decade or so too.

I thought the UK was supposed to be better than other countries.

There was systematic failure in Johnson’s government, there can be no excuses.

Resulting in the early deaths of so many people.