Will he resign 2

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!

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

Boris doesn't meet mine.

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.

James O’Brien Sorry didn’t copy

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?

'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.

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

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

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

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????

“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.

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".

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.

I agree with grandad.

All outraged and no place to go.

Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said: “Countless people have lost loved ones and made enormous, heartbreaking sacrifices every single day since lockdown began.

“Dominic Cummings has shown that these sacrifices by millions of people don’t matter to him. His refusal to have the decency to apologise is an insult to us all. It reveals the worst of his elitist arrogance.

“The bond of trust between the Government and the people has well and truly been broken. The buck stops with the Prime Minister. By failing to act, he risks his Government’s ability to tackle this awful pandemic and keep people safe.

“The Prime Minister must come clean about what he knows and terminate Dominic Cummings’ contract. It is now clearer than ever that, once we are through this crisis, there must also be an independent inquiry to review the Government’s actions.”

inews.co.uk/news/dominic-cummings-opposition-reaction-liberal-democrats-ed-davey-decency-apologise-insult-2864303

Completely agree Curlywhirly. He failed to answer a single question due to an apparent lack of knowledge.

I was squirming as he bumbled and waffled his way through every reply, barely making sense at times.

Well, if we had any doubts at all regarding Boris's ability, they were well and truly confirmed after his performance today. He seemed completely out of his depth; it was excruciating to watch. It was so embarassing I actually felt sorry for him.

It has to be faced that Cummings and Johnson have now in all probability weathered the worst of this storm. They have put up two fingers to all the public outrage and with only forty conservative MPs declaring that they believe that Cummings should resign that still leaves Johnson a majority of forty in the House of Commons should a vote of no confidence be called by the opposition.

Johnson has realised that even with all the public hostility over what Dominic Cummings carried out, that outrage has had no centre of opposition and as long as that situation continued there was no real challenge to his leadership or his decisions on the future of Cummings.

As any experienced grassroots trade unionist will tell anyone, any campaign has to be well organised and well targeted toward its objectives. In that, there has been enormous demonstrated hostility towards Cummings in a desire to see him removed from his position. However, that enormous hostility has had no central leadership and in that has always been doomed to failure.

I have stated several times on this forum that the above leadership could only come from the opposition parties in the House of Commons, and in that (with the exception of the SNP) they simply have not "turned up" to lead all the outrage of those posting continuously on social media etc.

Within a week schools and retail will be open once again and the national Covid debate will turn to the problems of those changes. That will leave Dominic Cummings believing he is titanium man, and perhaps in that belief, he may just be correct unless something new and very unexpected is brought into this issue.

I thought Yvette Cooper was excellent. She got to the nub of it. Can the 25% of women on Mumsnet without back up now drive anywhere in search of childcare?

I thought Boris was going to die on screen at one point with that cough!

Was this afternoon Boris’s best/worst performance ? I suppose you could say it was a Masterclass in not even vaguely answering the question.

Ken Clarke
@MrKennethClarke
·
5h
What’s the difference between Dominic Cummings and God?

God doesn’t think he’s Dominic Cummings.

I must be getting old. To me if no childcare could be found and they needed family support why couldn't the Twenty year old niece come to them? Travel is allowed to give support. The person driving her, if she could not drive herself would not need to leave the car or visit. If a comfort break was needed there would have been no infection risk as they were not symptomatic. A simple remedy to a temporary situation which would have solved the problem.

Well done indeed Boris - what a "world beating" record!

Exactly, Maisie!