Will he resign 2

Had he still been on the Labour front bench I believe it would have been a great moment for John McDonald to have been in front of the media.

With "that grin" and his soft but deeply cutting remarks, what a moment of opportunity that could have been.

Complete pantomine. It was suggested on the radio that he really went to Durham for a family celebration. Pity we could not find out if his parents/sister/nieces had a "big" birthday!!

Returning to Cummings.

Cummings made it clear yesterday that the rules do not apply to him. There is still no evidence that either him or his wife had covid as he claimed, in fact there are two or three different stories that have come from that household.

Having a small child to care for is unfortunate when illness strikes, but it is not exceptional. All of us have been in that position, and some have had to deal with far worse.

Cummings simply doesn’t get it does he? If everyone decides that their Circumstances are exceptional and therefore can move around the country then the virus will spread like wildfire.

Lives will be lost as a result.

Cummings somehow managed to read the small print which only he was aware of and find an excuse to travel around the U.K.

The result of his actions has given the government a real headache (a headache of it’s own choosing, most would have simply sacked him) which has resulted in far too much energy and attention given to one expendable individual.

His explanation doesn't stack up. I keep coming back to the point that he put his child into a car with another infected person. Plus why didn't his wife drive back?

None of it stacks up.

In fact I think it is even more unbelievable since the rose garden

My thoughts exactly!

Jennifer Cassidy
@OxfordDiplomat
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Dominic Cummings is GASLIGHTING the entire country. Live in TV. Soft spoken, being polite, apologetic, emphatic to families in similar situations. Calling reporters by names. Looking down. Looking defeated. Twisting every word. Making two realities. A PURE and UTTER Narcissistic.
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If he was hoping to come up smelling of roses he'll be disappointed.

This isn't going to go away.

John MacDonald and his soft but deeply cutting remarks ?

Such as ‘you f*****g losers’, and this to MP’s in the Labour Party on stage in the O2.

It was suggested on the radio that he really went to Durham for a family celebration. Pity we could not find out if his parents/sister/nieces had a "big" birthday!!

FindingNemo15 the trip out on 12th April to that beauty spot Barnard Castle 30 miles away (the one to test if his eyes were up to driving) just happened to be his wife's birthday. Happy coincidence eh?

Just heard one theory leading on from the suggestion of big party.

That the whole thing was a pack of lies.

That when Johnson got ill, Cummings saw his chance to have a jolly in Durham with family. The covid story none of which adds up, was just that to explain his disappearance.

Look????

Had to check this was not a spoof. It isn't. A "Barnard Castle" is indeed an old slang term for someone making a specious excuse. It derives supposedly from rhe conduct of Sir George Bowes who hid in Barnard Castle during the Rising of the Northern Earls in 1569.

Why did his wife not mention their child's overnight stay in hospital in her article?

For those disappointed in Labour’s low profile, Starmer and team hopefully preparing with forensic details for tomorrow’s PMQ. Fireworks expected!

First thing in the morning and last at night I put Classic FM on and every hour they play this:

"This is a message from the government about coronavirus; do not leave home if you or anyone else in your household is showing symptoms."

Perfectly clear to me.

Whitewavemark2 I completely agree - the more I hear of this story the more I think Cummings decided to pull a 'sickie' and visit his family for Easter (and wasn't it his mother's birthday and his wife's too?) I also don't think the visit had anything to do with the child's welfare; if it did, why oh why would anyone subject their child to a 4/5 hour journey cooped up in a car with someone with covid19?? There are so many holes in his story: wife accompanied child to hospital when she had just shown signs of covid19, shouldn't she have been isolating (even if she felt better)? If I had suspected covid19 I wouldn't want to be anywhere near my child or ambulance and NHS staff. The completely unbelievable excuse of a test drive to Barnard Castle with his child and wife, supposedly to test his eyesight - to keep the child safe, he shouldn't have been on that test drive with his father. Not much child safety going on in that family. I don't believe Cummings would have put his child's health in danger in those ways, and that's why I don't believe his story.

janipat. Thanks for info. I am surprised the press has not picked up on this and made more of that fact.

A junior minister has just resigned.

curleywhirly

Reading your post.

Yes the more you think about it the more you realise he is trying to play us.

Apparently war games is his obsession. Look at his blog! He tries to apply those rules to playing Westminster and the country.

He is imo mad as a box of frogs. With the crackpot theory based on utter nonsense.

His act yesterday bears no resemblance to his reported personality and no one should be taken in by it.

It was a pantomime, the like of which I hope never to see in the U.K. again.

Just thought of another "fail" in his story. He believes his wife has coronavirus, he's worried he may get it too and both be too ill to look after their son, so drives to cottage on father's farm, to self isolate for 14 days. Then during his statement he harked on more than once that he thought they were bringing in testing for advisors, so if he tested negative he could return to work, knowing his wife and child were being cared for. No he couldn't!! He'd still have to quarantine for 14 days, is he so unaware of the rules he helped formulate? Doesn't say much does it!

Good for Douglas Ross a Tory with principle and integrity. Let’s hope there are more.

He isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.

Another trait that his boss has.

There are so many random components in this London to Durham trip that it's difficult to make any sense of it. Allegedly the main focus was to get childcare should DC and/or his wife become ill. Then we learn that childcare wasn't actually needed after all. So the 260 mile journey and, of course, the same distance back to London was completely unnecessary then.

We also learn that the child fell ill in Durham. Perhaps the long car journey was too much for him.

If you think about it.

A government minister quits because a spad won’t quit!!,..

Quite extraordinary. A constitutional nightmare

Kate54 Quote [ For those disappointed in Labour’s low profile, Starmer and team hopefully preparing with forensic details for tomorrow’s PMQ. Fireworks expected!] End Quote.

Kate54 Sadly parliament is in recess (yet again) at present and do not sit again for at least another week I believe. Starmer's only opportunity to really get at Cummings, Johnson and this whole government was over the weekend when the crisis was its height by appearing strongly on the media

I feel Starmer could have applied for opposition response time to make a formal statement on the matter on all the main television stations simultaneously.

The above would have been very difficult to deny to Starmer as the government had used the daily Covid briefing to speak on the Cummings debacle and allowed Dominic Cummings himself to use Downing Street to make a statement on the issue when he is not even a formal member of the government.

Huge opportunity missed by the Labour strategists undoubtedly

And sometimes when one minister shows some integrity, more follow.