Will he resign 2

Glenda Jackson and Dan Hodges don't get on.

may7 I agree and would also add that coincidentally it was his wife’s and mother’s birthday.

It was simply a jolly that he went on.

maybe yes a few hundred thousand apparently.

Cummings thinks he is above the law.
Boris needs him as without DC he hasn't a clue.
DC is a liar
But he has Boris to 'protect' him
They both think they are clever enough to pull the wool over the general publics eyes but they underestimate us all

Cummings' arrogance is reminiscent of Trump. Everything about his tone shouts "I am lying. You know I'm lying. I know that you know I'm lying - but what are you going to do about it?"

Wonder if they got EU grants for the land?

I'm right off Prue Leith, you know, growstuff!

Also Glenda Jackson, who I admired greatly as an actor and Labour MP, her son is Dan Hodges, right wing journalist, isn't he?

Despite everyone calling The Cummings Senior's place an 'estate' it's not really that grand. It was bought as a farm with a modest farmhouse. No lodge gates. Land holdings have been added to (greatly) over the years.

The really posh house is about half a mile down the road from them. It was the grand home of an old established local Catholic landowning family. Was occupied by monks for some years, then sold about 20 years ago and broken into several dwellings. Very private, remote from the road. Whereas the Cummings' place is next to the road and easy to see.

I still think it's a bit strange that the death of Cummings' uncle on 5 April wasn't even mentioned in the Spectator article.

Wakefield claimed she got down on her knees and prayed for Johnson, who went into hospital on the same day, but no mention of the uncle.

Just say for arguments sake the wife was feeling a bit poorly no covid symptoms just a bit off colour. caring husband says ^let's go spend fortnight at my parents private estate. No one will notice us there everyone is in lockdown. So off they toddle to Durham There they stay in house (not stopping in lodge its too near the entrance) of mother and father and near sister and niece. Now having a lovely time but uh oh child becomes Ill and they call an ambulance. Now they're in a pickle people will recognise child. Child not tested positive for CV because no one in the family has or subseqently caught CV.
So after a fortnight they risk a little trip out to Barnard castle on wifes birthday where they get spotted. Ooh dear better get back to work and think up a story as to why we broke the lockdown rules.... Aahh there it is care for vulnerable child if parents haveCV and cant cope
Wife then writes touching cover up story
Is this a good enough fairy story or is the other one more plausible?

Cabbages live in gardens.

PS. He's the son of Prue Leith, who has also tweeted in support of Cummings.

Maizie Danny Kruger has a very similar agenda to Cummings. He had to withdraw as a Conservative candidate when he said he wanted "to introduce a period of creative destruction in the public services". He has written loads of other stuff too. He was Johnson's former secretary and only became an MP because the sitting MP had to stand down for no specific reasons. He worked for the Spectator at one point and is said to be a friend of Mary Wakefield, so he's one of the clique.

Do you mean Mary Wakefield?

I think that's a minor detail. It's designed to provoke an emotional response, which can then be attacked in itself.

This is what it's all been about … Danny Kruger has sent a memo to Conservative MPs, saying that Johnson and Cummings are the only two who can get Brexit done and win the next election. No mention of saving people's lives or businesses. They don't care.

Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat and Tobias Ellwood, two Conservative MPs for whom I do have some respect, have been banned from asking Johnson questions at the Liaison Committee.

The 1922 Committee have said they won't call for Cummings' resignation, but they want to know why he's so important to Johnson. They're calling for a cabinet reshuffle with more competent people in post.

Just read that Emily Wakefields father called his horse Barack because he is 'half black and half white'. They really are an adorable family, aren't they.

Granny23
Try not to exhaust yourself, easy to say, but can you solve the two practical difficulties, ie get someone in to mend the tap and saw a huge pile of wood for you?
Sometimes it's the smaller things that put us at the end of our tethers.

It is devastating for those unable to see loved ones and distressing being unable to attend a funeral of a relative.

My Sis-IL is isolating at home alone, with rapid onset dementia. Family were at the stage of thinking of arranging a care home for her but that is impossible now. We worry that something will happen, she may wander off, because sometimes she is absolutely on the ball and then is bewildered by what is happening.

Granny23 for your many troubles. My step-father was in a home and it was heartbreaking when he stopped being able to recognise us.

I would love to be sitting in the garden relaxing but I am stuck indoors waiting for a call back from my solicitor, who is also stuck indoors waiting for news of her seriously ill in hospital father. I have been trying since March to sell DH's ISAs to pay his Care Home Fees, endless calls to Stockbrokers (who are working from home. One call cost me £13.86 because unbeknown to me I was phoning a mobile.) They are still refusing to accept my POA documents because their IT system only recognises the English version and my POA is Scottish and delays with sending documents as must be by registered post and I'm locked down. As DH is in a Care Home (only 1/4 mile from my house) I have not seen or spoken to him since March, except by Skype, which is hopeless and upsetting as he is pretty deaf and now has no idea who I am - certainly not his wife who is apparently much younger and prettier than me. He does not look like himself either as the carers have (for hygiene??) shaved off the beard which he first grew on our honeymoon 54 years ago. I do have daily calls with my DDs and DGC which are some comfort. I exhaust myself every day working in our my huge garden, watering daily by watering can because the outside tap is broken and sawing wood for the fire so that I sleep at nights, trying not to dream about our annual, whole family, holiday, in a rented cottage on the Isle of Barra. the highlight of the year but not this year of course, so nothing to look forward to. My Cousin has just died, funeral in Inverness on Monday, I will be remembering her from here, home alone at 12 noon.

I could go on but please do not insult me and the thousands who are in a worst pickle than I am, by suggesting that a seat in the sun will solve everything.

Part of an article a friend passed to me:

Cummings made absolutely clear his conditions for working in government were smashing civil service and rebuilding in his image and creating British ‘ARPA’ – an AI-driven research facility. That’s exactly what he’s doing right now in Cabinet Office with Gove his long-time co-conspirator. Sure, the hypocrisy and entitlement of Cummings is breathtaking but there’s a far darker story that it obscures and it’s why the focus must be on Johnson now and his decision to throw weight of his office – statement from No 10 – behind him.”

The real story that Cadwalladr and others, like TruePublica, have been saying all along is this. The Conservative party is not a party for ‘broad-church’ centre-right politicians with traditional Conservative values. That has gone. This party wants to extract Britain from the centre-left European Union of regulation and pivot Britain towards a deregulated America. Next year, Britain will have suffered a hard-Brexit or something like it and some sort of trade-deal’ with America will have been ‘agreed’.

truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/dominic-cummings-a-cover-story-obscuring-something-far-darker/

Now I don't remember Dominc Cummings standing fro Parliament on a platform of completely reorganising the civil service to his liking and aligning the USA with the USA. Or subverting the process for awarding government contracts by competitive tender in order for a few favoured companies to be just 'given' them. If he had, then people could have decided whether or not this was what they wanted for the UK and voted accordingly.

No, he is an unelected bureaucrat with extraordinary power over our government who wants to completely reshape the UK to his own agenda. Now, I recall that lots of people voted to leave the EU because they didn't want to be ruled by unelected bureaucrats, Very passionate about it, they were. So why aren't they bothered about Cummings' agenda which they haven't even been asked about?

Into the garden now, for lunch and reading my book.?

GG13 ....but what you have to remember is that some people really enjoy thinking up conspiracy stories ( and spreading them) it’s as good for them as a day out.
Tbh I think everybody would be better to cut a lot ( maybe all) social media out of their lives.

I do think this "you are just jealous" accusation that seems to be hurled at anyone who questions privilege very strange. Is it jealousy just to think that some degree of equality should be the norm? That the people who should be given permission to exercise in any of the private green spaces in London should really be those who live in cramped and crowded conditions. Even the Victorians recognised the value of giving workers places to excersise. Is all action and opinion about equality just based on jealousy? I think those who make the accusation must have very skewed thinking and strange minds.
As for Dom he's probably rejoicing. Break the lockdown rules, get it publicised knowing people will be outraged and do the same. Virus spread, herd immunity in progress, poor and old wiped out, job done!

People like Cummings rely on people not thinking about things....

Yes for goodness sake dont think about things. Just sit in your garden

Not me gg13 nothing to do with jealousy. I much prefer the countryside. Buckingham palace gardens have always seemed to be unfortunately right in the middle of a whole lot of polluted air.

But it will be something else over this whole sorry saga that the new working class Tory voter will remember.

Labour is sitting back and watching this, wondering just how much more the Tories can do to themselves!