Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings

Its not true because I don't believe it and if you keep saying it is and showing me facts I'll scweam and scweam and scweam until I'm sick.

Sorry, I'm in that kind of mood today.

Granny have you read the thread we have talked about being able to hold conflicting opinions. Actually things would be much easier if people were able to do that more frequently along with other things such as changing their mind, etc.

lemongrove

suziew you really are rattled yourself over any perceived insult to being left wing, and bring it up at every opportunity.
Finland has always had a terrible record for alcoholism and suicides, so much so that they had a particular programme to try and reduce it, which they have been quite successful in,
However the country still has high levels of both, plus drug related deaths.You can compare the stats until you are blue in the face and try and deny them ( although why you should do that is mystifying.) Look up how things are in Finland...it has high happiness levels reported but also high misery levels.

Moving on.....? Cummings may have a few skeletons stashed away ( what special advisor in Downing St wouldn’t?) but it’s more a question of how he can flesh them out.

Finland’s suicide rate is not 2x that of Sweden’s and repeat Finland’s suicide rate etc..... You haven’t read my link have you?

The Telegraph piece is insulting to the "ordinary people" it seeks to represent. To suggest that ordinary people are more concerned with smooth flowing traffic that they are with the trustworthiness and honesty of the people we have in charge of the country is just gaslighting.

Nothing to see here, move along, its all just blown out of proportion...

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey, do you think we all floated down the Laggan in a bubble?

Well I think it’s good to see Boris has some passion inside him about what lies ahead for the future of the UK economy. I was starting to give up. Let's hope he stands firm in future and there are no more lockdowns.
?

suziew you really are rattled yourself over any perceived insult to being left wing, and bring it up at every opportunity.
Finland has always had a terrible record for alcoholism and suicides, so much so that they had a particular programme to try and reduce it, which they have been quite successful in,
However the country still has high levels of both, plus drug related deaths.You can compare the stats until you are blue in the face and try and deny them ( although why you should do that is mystifying.) Look up how things are in Finland...it has high happiness levels reported but also high misery levels.

Moving on.....? Cummings may have a few skeletons stashed away ( what special advisor in Downing St wouldn’t?) but it’s more a question of how he can flesh them out.

suziewoozie the Conservative voters I know are not rattled (a tad or otherwise)

We just find amusing watching those left of centre pinning their colours to the mask of someone who they have berated for the last year or more, that reeks of desperation.

The eighty seat majority must really hurt.

Johnson must be feeling very isolated as all his long time close aides have left him in recent months including, Cain and Lister. The only experienced communications expert left is Symonds.

They must be massively worried over what Cummings will do next. 26th May being a worry.

Cummings knows that his reputation is shot with the public, so he will have to be very clever in the way he plays his cards.

One thing a Tory source quipped- Johnson is fighting a war on so many fronts that it begins to get confusing. Although they did think one of the bigger most damaging reports is that Johnson knew about the European Super League and gave it his tacit support.
This would have had the potential to be career ending, it just seems to have got lost in amongst all the other scandals.

Alegrias1

Cummings isn't the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.

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The right are really rattled are they not - apologies for understating the extent of the rattledness previously when I used the term ‘tad’ as an adjective. Just listened to Therese Coffey on R4 - it’s toe curling to hear

vegansrock

Yes suziewoozie anyone who uses suicide statistics as a measure of that country’s wellbeing obviously do not understand the way suicide statistics are compiled. Anyway what’s this got to do with the cesspit that is Downing Street.?

I think it’s to do with left wing=bad as proved by the ‘facts’ (???) that people in countries with left wing governments are alcoholics, unhappy and kill themselves ergo right wing = good and Johnson is perfect

Cummings isn't the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.

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Cummings isn’t the messiah?.

You are misreading people’s opinions if you think we have had such a Damascene change. Cummings will always be associated with Bernard Castle and the lies and law breaking.

But it is clear that Cummings has plenty of Johnson’s skeletons which he can bring out as he wishes to destroy Johnson’s reputation.

Not that he has much of a one to begin with.

My messiah reference was that folks on MSM and those with left leaning politics will cling on to anything/anyone who they think will bring down Mr.Johnson.

Whilst the man/women in the street just wants to know when their second vaccine is, when they can visit family, ensure their job is safe etc...

Who is describing Cummings as the messiah?
The consensus I see on this discussion is he’s an untrustworthy snake. That hasn’t changed. Many posters on previous discussions have suggested he has information that could destabilise Johnson.
Cummings is a nasty piece of work. Employing him, the standing by him after the Barnard Castle issue said a good deal about Johnson. None of it cimplimentary

Never be so naive as to believe that what has and is happening does not matter.

It matters is so many ways.

Just look at the international newspapers and the articles about Johnson. Time after time - he started off as a clown and someone to be laughed at, a second rate Trump, but now morphed into a sleazy and corrupt politician Who can’t be trusted in and deals.

As far as the U.K. voter, time will tell, but don’t forget that Majors government fell as a result of sleaze but far less serious than this woeful trail of corruption, theft from the taxpayer, and incompetence, to get her with constant lying and internal warfare.

Mr.Cummings was sacked, he has an agenda, he is throwing a temper tantrum!

I will repeat again, this time last year folks in newspapers and on here were deriding Mr.Cummings as a Machiavellian liar, twelve months on he is the messiah...

I haven’t read anything other than the headlines in the DM. The DM makes the Guardian seem understanding and compassionate in its analysis of where Johnson finds himself.
There’s a headline quoting Cameron’s description of Cummings as a career psychopath. Lots of questions about why Johnson employed Cummings, particularly the Downing St garden press conference held by Cummings.
Messy messy messy. It does seem that Cummings will not only damage Johnson’s credibility further but is out to destroy him.

I’m with Sherelle Jacob’s article in the Telegraph this morning:

“There is nothing like a Westminster scandal to expose the chasm between the public and the metropolitan commentariat. While the chattering classes salivate over claims that Boris Johson was willing to let “the bodies pile high” to avoid a third lockdown, and the Left launch a Twitter revolution against Tory sleaze, ordinary people merely feel irritation. At this time of national crisis, the Dominic Cummings saga seems a distraction. Tory backbenchers who are no Boris loyalists report not to have received a single letter on the affair from constituents. They are more preoccupied by the prudence of low traffic neighbourhoods as high streets recover from the pandemic, and cancer waiting lists.”

Johnson is isolated in Downing Street with no trusted longstanding aides and, according to Tory MPs risks becoming uncontrollable.
Case and Rosenfield are considered to be too politically inexperienced to deal with the toxicity now raging in No 10, who normally would be expected to intervene, but nothing is happening

Johnson is surrounded by inexperienced staff and people who he doesn’t particularly know.

Guardian 27/4

Yes suziewoozie anyone who uses suicide statistics as a measure of that country’s wellbeing obviously do not understand the way suicide statistics are compiled. Anyway what’s this got to do with the cesspit that is Downing Street.?

vegansrock

Anyone who has studied statistics knows that suicide statistics are notoriously inaccurate and can vary from country to country for many reasons. What is counted in official statistics as a suicide depends on a coroners verdict. In many countries where suicide is seen as shameful and even sinful, coroners are reluctant to bring in suicide verdicts and that countries suicide figures will be low . In more tolerant societies, deaths by suicide are less likely to be labelled “accidental” or “open/ unknown”, their figures will be higher.This is one reason why Scandinavian countries have a higher suicide rate compared with more traditional societies. It could be that rates are similar, but the official statistics are not. There is a famous work by Emil Durkheim, written in the 19th century called “Suicide” which analyses this phenomenon.

The link I posted also discusses several issues that impact suicide rates such as the law on assisted suicide in the relevant country. Yes I know Durkheim’s work as well - it was groundbreaking wasn’t it ? Read it well over 50 years ago - I think he coined the word anomie in it to describe one type of suicide

lemongrove

Callistemon

blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/finland-is-the-happiest-country-in-the-world-and-finns-arent-happy-about-it/

Suicide rates in Finland are half what they were in 1990s…but they remain well above the European average
www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190924-being-depressed-in-the-worlds-happiest-country

2019

What is happiness and how is it rated?

This suziew

My above post doesn’t say Finland is the worst in the world.
Japan and some Eastern European countries are pretty bad,
But in Finland, although they are getting the numbers down
( on alcohol drugs and suicides) they are still very high.
Double of that of neighbouring Sweden for a start.

I’ve read the links - I can’t find anywhere that the Finns suicide rate is 2x the Swedish.

Understandable concern about funding of PM’s private flat, never matched by concern for the multi million pound funding of royal private homes.

We spent £4.5m on Charles’s home when he moved into Clarence House. Duke and Duchess of Kent’s new home is costing us £400k. Harry’s cottage was £2.4m for refurbs while William and Kate spent £4.5m of public money on doing up their Kensington Palace apartment.

Anyone who has studied statistics knows that suicide statistics are notoriously inaccurate and can vary from country to country for many reasons. What is counted in official statistics as a suicide depends on a coroners verdict. In many countries where suicide is seen as shameful and even sinful, coroners are reluctant to bring in suicide verdicts and that countries suicide figures will be low . In more tolerant societies, deaths by suicide are less likely to be labelled “accidental” or “open/ unknown”, their figures will be higher.This is one reason why Scandinavian countries have a higher suicide rate compared with more traditional societies. It could be that rates are similar, but the official statistics are not. There is a famous work by Emil Durkheim, written in the 19th century called “Suicide” which analyses this phenomenon.

Callistemon

blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/finland-is-the-happiest-country-in-the-world-and-finns-arent-happy-about-it/

Suicide rates in Finland are half what they were in 1990s…but they remain well above the European average
www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190924-being-depressed-in-the-worlds-happiest-country

2019

What is happiness and how is it rated?

This suziew

My above post doesn’t say Finland is the worst in the world.
Japan and some Eastern European countries are pretty bad,
But in Finland, although they are getting the numbers down
( on alcohol drugs and suicides) they are still very high.
Double of that of neighbouring Sweden for a start.