Will he resign 2

I too agree with grandad. The only hope is that Cummings will keep his head down for a while and tread more carefully. I doubt it’ll last long though.

Perhaps more will come out when (if) there’s any sort of enquiry into the handling of the pandemic by the Government. Mention keeps being made that there’ll be one.

Varian, in regard to your post @19:36 today, the bond of trust, as you state, will be lost only as long as the Cummings issue remains in the public limelight. By the middle of next week, other covid issues will be dominating the public agenda.

In a few weeks we shall then have the full economic reality of the Coronavirus lockdown with perhaps five to six million unemployed emerging from the crisis. In that situation, the Cummings issue will be long forgotten and it will be how this government handles that economic situation which will then determine whether any "bond of trust" exists or can be built between the electorate and Johnson's government.

As Harold Wison so rightly stated, "a week is a long time in politics".

“As any experienced grassroots trade unionist will tell anyone, any campaign has to be well organised and well targeted toward its objectives”.

Oh yes, good ol’ bully boy tactics. I remember my dad used to tell me about these in the 70’s.

The BBC have “apologised” for Emily Maitliss’s opening statement on news night yesterday evening and apparently she has been replaced for tonight’s program.

Biased BBC caught out????

And have they apologised/suspended Kuensberg for defending Cummings when the news first broke?

Did she?
She did walk out of that notorious Brexit briefing when some journalists were ordered out, I think.

She tweeted something; I'll try to find it....

'Kuenssberg, 43, had tweeted last Friday: 'Source says his trip was within guidelines as Cummings went to stay with his parents so they could help with childcare while he and his wife were ill – they insist no breach of lockdown.'' It was an immediate knee jerk defence of his action and received a lot of complaints.

Would it be OK for Emily Maitlis to present BBC programs while getting paid by the Barclay brothers to publish an unashamedly partisan magazine, featuring a dizzying array of alt-right ghouls & at least one Nazi apologist, every single week?

James O’Brien Sorry didn’t copy

BBC bosses reprimanded Maitlis in a statement this afternoon, which stated Maitlis had not met 'our standards of due impartiality' in the controversial introduction to the BBC2 programme.

She’s had a good run but her wings have been clipped.

Boris doesn't meet mine.

Actually - scrap the licence fee. Let her express her opinion at someone other than the tax payers expense. She does not speak for me.

One worrying thing I saw on bbc news was a presenter saying they are there to hold the government to account. WRONG, you are there to report news!

It is down to the opposition political parties to hold the government to account. The media and news are over stepping the line!

I agree urmstongran. Here’s a clip from a piece by Madeleine Grant in today’s Telegraph re EM’s rant,

‘I simply cannot imagine the TV presenters I grew up watching in the 1990s, the likes of Moira Stuart, Trevor MacDonald or Alastair Stewart, indulging in didactic rants such as these. Even Jeremy Paxman, renowned for his abrasive style, never made it clear where his loyalties lay. His brand of “equal opportunities booting” left no doubt that his private views did not impinge on his methods, and when he outed himself as a One Nation Conservative following his retirement from the show, many left-wingers expressed a sense of betrayal or disappointment.’

In an interview several years ago an ex-Director General of the BBC admitted that "There was massive left-wing bias at the BBC.". Also the recently retired ‘Today’ presenter, John Humphry’s agreed didn’t he?

Furthermore, Ex-BBC Newsreader Peter Sissons said "Left-wing bias? It's written through the BBC's very DNA.".

Plus, a former head of BBC TV news Roger Mosey, has previously stated... "Auntie leans so far Leftwards that she frequently topples over into propaganda.".

Further to that, a freedom of information request several years ago by a journo revealed that the BBC sends many of its senior staff to attend courses at the secretive political organisation known as ‘Common Purpose’.

She does not speak for me.

Well, Ug, she speaks for me and for millions of other people. I really don't know where you get the impression that journalists have to 'speak for you' from. This is not supposed to be a fascist state where everyone has to spout the 'state' line. The BBC is not an organ of the state. There are questions to be asked about the Cummings affair and journalists have every right to voice them, as Maitlis did.

I don't watch much TV any more but as I recall, Newsnight is not a 'news' programme but a vehicle for analysis of the news. She was doing her job, analysing the situation and coming to entirely legitimate conclusions.

It is an evil day for democracy and free speech when journalists are silenced.

And 'several years ago' is not now. The opinions expressed by the people you quote are just that, opinions. They are free to express them but we do not have to be bound by them.

We must not let trial by media become the norm. They will force the sacking/resignation of anyone they dislike or disagree with in the political arena. They need to back off.

Who is to hold the political establishment to account if not the media?

We are not living in an authoritarian state.

The BBC are a disgrace they are cooking up a storm over Cummings.

Most of us are fed up of hearing about this and want to move on to more important issues like getting our country working again and Brexit.

I don't think it is most of us, though.

What I would like to know, so that I could form a reasoned judgment, is what rules did DC comply with.

Here’s the PM’s letter to the nation 28 March that says stay at home is an instruction, and with specific exceptions (which don’t include DC’s “exception”), and which will incur fines if people don’t comply - assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/876876/CCS155_CCS0320349160-003_PM_letter_to_nation_on_coronovirus_Accessible.pdf
What and where is the guidance that existed at the time and was readily available to the public that said there were other circumstances than stated in that letter that allowed people not to stay at home?
If the govt could give me that guidance and tell me how the public were supposed to know it at that time, I might accept that DC wasn’t breaking any rules when he travelled late at night on 27 March, with his wife having coronavirus symptoms.

Urmstongran 21:05:23

I do agree that yes, that is the job of the Opposition parties.

However, it is the job of journalists to seek and report the truth.

Maisie - ‘I really don't know where you get the impression that journalists have to 'speak for you' from.’ Maitliss obviously thinks so, again from M Grants piece,

‘Apparently speaking for the nation (itself a problematic starting point) Emily Maitlis began:’ etc etc.

No one is suggesting everyone has to spout the party line, all we ask and expect(!) is impartiality.