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Boris is raging
I wonder what The Guardian and The Mirror have left up their sleeve?
Should cummings have a fine for breaking lockdown? If not I would suggest that all fines should be refunded on that basis
Jesus Christ, this is worse than a Trump briefing.
Democracy in action, eh?
Jesus Christ, this is worse than a Trump briefing.
Democracy in action, eh?
How can it be worst? I thought PM BoJo explained well?
I have an awful feeling this is some massive dead cat and we are missing something else.
There is no way DC was ever going to resign over anything, so he had nothing to loose by coming up here for a family trip out.
Boris is hating having his authority questioned by the media. I really hope they release more just after the press Conf!!!!
Worse??? Tricky, but not answering the direct questions surely puts them n a par
actually this is turning out better than it looked like. Because he really has no answers to an indefensible position, he's not allowing any comeback questions, and in front of the country it's absolutely clear that he has no answers and no control whatsoever over Cummings.
No-one's buying his answers (Chewk maybe but he's a troll anyway) and he's looking like the kid at school who's forgotten his PE kit and is stood in front of everyone else in his vest and pants.
The cracks are opening and no amount of papering over can close them......
This is awful. He’s barely coherent.
Cummingsgate is clearly not going away, is it?
come on Mirror/Guardian - drop the bomb......
How can it be worst? I thought he explained well?
Well, yeah, but Boris Johnson could curl out a fresh turd on TV and you'd compliment the size and texture of it.
Well at least we all now know why our glorious leader has been hiding!
I’m ****ing raging right now! I suspect I’m not alone
Risky strategy at play here. Costituency Tories coming out and saying they are disgusted etc. so their constituents are pacified, but able to hold their hands up and say 'what can i do?' about the leadership. Local Tory loyalty stronger than national conscience? I think it will be.
Likelihood of strikes also ramped up as well given the diregard of teachers safety.
Loads of cctv owners up north now scanning their footage for Cummings 😀
PM Johnson has just explained Cummings’ situation which I am satisfied with.
Well done PM Johnson for dealing with the media frenzies head on
I'm sure there's a bike forum full of misguided, right-wing, bigots somewhere. Can please sod off there, and stop annoying us.
Infuriating, no clear answers just loads of childcare this, childcare that. And clearly cutting off people and muting them when not wanting to have any more questions.
Anyway my most suitable childcare provider is in the Bahamas, see you in two weeks!
Wow, BoJo lost his composure there big time. Hope more evidence emerges later.
Oh and @chewk - give your head a wobble mate
The bloke that took a picture of his number plate is considerably richer today. I imagine it will appear on the front pages overnight.
Boris praising others' fathering instincts lol
Well, yeah, but Boris Johnson could curl out a fresh turd on TV and you’d compliment the size and texture of it.
🤣 that's a good expression there " ... curl out a fresh turd ..." I am going to borrow that phrase next time I have discussion with mates.
On a serious note, No. I don't buy anything politicians throw at me.
He didn’t answer the “Did he visit the castle?” Question. Completely skirted around it. Good job my kids were upstairs so they couldn’t hear me swearing at the tv.
The questions needed to be more direct and to the point. Ian the BBC guys was trying. Pestons questions were just fluff and a waste of time.
Does DC and his partner have any relatives living in London whom could have been asked to help should both be and his wife be unable to provide childcare?
Did he visit the Castle during the isolation where the message is clear “ Stay at Home”.
Did he make any subsequent trips to the NE during lockdown?
Maybe question 1 he could slime out of.
Easily the worst gov in my lifetime. Both incompetent and the integrity of snakes.
The bloke that took a picture of his number plate is considerably richer today.
He memorised it and tried to Google it later. The tech steamroller has not quite rolled into Teesdale yet.
Could someone put in a FOI request on where Cummings' number plate has pinged ANPR in the last few week? Surely you could argue it is in the national interest?
On a serious note, No. I don’t buy anything politicians throw at me.
You’re a con mans wet dream.
I may have missed something in this story. The defence appears to be absolute necessity for childcare.
Does his wife have any family closer than Durham? I assume not because no one is pursuing this point?
He drives a Land Rover so there's bound to be a RAC report of fixing it on the side on the motorway somewhere.
binners
Subscriber
Well at least we all now know why our glorious leader has been hiding!
I’m ****ing raging right now! I suspect I’m not alone
You're not the only one.
It would appear I owe you 2 steak bakes.
Bollocks.
That's nearly £4.00 I'll never see again......
I didn't dare visit my mum on the day my dad died on March 24th (not Covid) because I was terrified of potentially infecting her with the virus despite the fact I had no symptoms. Then he's driving across the country to his parents? I am absolutely fuming. I made one of the most heart breaking and difficult decisions of my life based on what the government had said. I'd happily kick the man in the balls until he's not Cummings anymore. So angry.
The bloke that took a picture of his number plate is considerably richer today. I imagine it will appear on the front pages overnight.
Is that a cert?
I'm too young to have really experienced Thatcher's government. I know people didn't like her but I never really understood the hatred that saw people throw parties when she died. I get it now.
My 4 year old just pointed at the tv when bojo was on and said "that man is stupid"
Without swearing I can't put it any better
On a
seriousgratuitously trolling note, No. I don’t buy anything politicians throw at me.
FTFY.
My 4 year old just pointed at the tv when bojo was on and said “that man is stupid”
Without swearing I can’t put it any better
My nine year old just said "why does he speak like that? He sounds like an idiot".
Perceptive the young are.
He drives a Land Rover
That would be several fuel stops on the way up and back then.
Does DC and his partner have any relatives living in London whom could have been asked to help should both be and his wife be unable to provide childcare?
I think I read somewhere that his brother in law lives in London...
Does his wife have any family closer than Durham?
London
He's an utter, utter twunt but I do believe that he has zero friends hence the need to go elsewhere. His own family probably despise him too.
I notice the link I posted this morning to the pack of lies his wife wrote in the spectator article chronicling their struggle with Covid (minus the Durham trip) no longer works. Disappointing the press didn’t pick up on this at the briefing.
If Cummings was acting within the rules why did his missus decide to blatantly omit these details?
Chewkw is Emu
Cummins is Rod Hull, hope he's got a glove on
https://twitter.com/UKCivilService/status/1264600481688702977
Looks like that's the official CS account 😁
The bloke that took a picture of his number plate is considerably richer today. I imagine it will appear on the front pages overnight.
Not sure it matters anymore does it? He'd have to be pictured peeing on the gravestone of a WW2 hero or somesuch, and even then Boris would come out and say he was being a good citizen giving it a clean.
w00dster - cummings brother and sister-in-law live in London. His closest aide lives 2 streets away.
Just been deleted I think - the civil service tweet that is.
That is great bruneep, I wonder if the account was hacked or it really is an employee?
That twitter post has just been shown on bbc
Wow. The civil service aren’t holding back!!
—-
Arrogant and offensive.
Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?
— UK Civil Service (@UKCivilService) May 24, 2020
—-
Edit - Sorry just seen this had already been posted. That said if it has been withdrawn it’s a bit like a lawyer asking the defendant a question and then withdrawing it.
It just plants a seed in peoples heads. It’s out there regardless and shows just what a risky strategy this is by BJ. If he loses the support of too many people he’s in trouble.
Chewkw is Emu
Cummins is Rod Hull, hope he’s got a glove on
😬
Did you catch this?
Since been deleted, but posted on the official Civil Service Twitter feed...
always grab a screen shot 😉
BBC news has just shown it too, and then mentioned it's since been deleted. Of course, it'll be a hack or a 'disgruntled employee' ......
some massive dead cat and we are something else.
This.. Did he actually break the law? He certainly stretched it to the limit.. it's all very confusing by design and that's the Conservative modus operandi.
with all the noise over this cockwomble and covid, what else is going on in the background they dont want us to know about?
It's not about breaking the law, it is about responsible actions and integrity
Apparently settled status doesn't mean what it used to, that's one example we're heading straight into a no deal brexit in a few months too...
One rule for peasants one rule for heirachy 🙄
All animals are equal...
I found the spectator article from his missus on a window left open on my phone (link now no longer working)
Mary Wakefield
Getting coronavirus does not bring clarity
From magazine issue: 25 April 2020
Getting coronavirus does not bring clarity
(iStock)
SHAREI had thought that actually getting the coronavirus would bring clarity — that there would be some satisfaction in meeting the enemy, feeling its spectral hands around my lungs. No such luck. Uncertainty is the hallmark of Covid-19. Even its origins are murky: wet markets or the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control? Who knows, and who would ever believe the Chinese government anyway? When you’ve got it, the sense of medieval unknowing only deepens. Is this definitely it? Will it get worse? Will it come back?
My version of the virus began with a nasty headache and a grubby feeling of unease, after which I threw up on the bathroom floor. ‘That’s disgusting, Mum,’ said my four-year-old son, handing me a towel with a look of patronising distaste.
I’ve never known a bug treat its victims so differently. My friends have reported stabbing sore throats, a loss of taste and smell, and numbness in their fingertips. The Huazhong university in Wuhan has just updated its list of official first symptoms which now includes: headache, dizziness, muscle inflammation, fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and coughing.
One slight but sad effect of this great variation in symptoms is that it makes phoning friends to share Covid stories peculiarly unsatisfying. ‘Weren’t the muscle aches awful? Oh, you didn’t get them. Nope, no sore throat for me. Oh well.’
That evening, as I lay on the sofa, a happy thought occurred to me: if this was the virus, then my husband, who works 16-hour days as a rule, would have to come home. I let myself imagine a fortnight in bed with ‘mild symptoms’, chatting to Dom and son through an open door. More fool me.
My husband did rush home to look after me. He’s an extremely kind man, whatever people assume to the contrary. But 24 hours later, he said ‘I feel weird’ and collapsed. I felt breathless, sometimes achy, but Dom couldn’t get out of bed. Day in, day out for ten days he lay doggo with a high fever and spasms that made the muscles lump and twitch in his legs. He could breathe, but only in a limited, shallow way.
After a week, we reached peak corona uncertainty. Day six is a turning point, I was told: that’s when you either get better or head for ICU. But was Dom fighting off the bug or was he heading for a ventilator? Who knew? I sat on his bed staring at his chest, trying to count his breaths per minute. The little oxygen reader we’d bought on Amazon indicated that he should be in hospital, but his lips weren’t blue and he could talk in full sentences, such as: ‘Please stop staring at my chest, sweetheart.’
My son, in his doctor’s uniform, administered Ribena with the grim insistence of a Broadmoor nurse
When do you go to hospital? Do you really wait until the lips go blue? Cedd, in his doctor’s uniform, administered Ribena with the grim insistence of a Broadmoor nurse, and this might be my only really useful advice for other double-Covid parents or single mothers with pre-schoolers: get out the doctor’s kit and make it your child’s job to take your temperature. Any game that involves lying down is a good game. My other corona tip is to order at least a litre of PVA glue. As Dom lay sweating, Cedd and I made a palace out of polystyrene packaging. I’ve laughed in the past at men who obsess over model railways. I won’t laugh again. In a chaotic and unpredictable environment, there’s nothing more comforting than having total control over your own tiny world. Long after my son lost interest I was busy gluing on towers, and cutting coloured acetate to make window panes. When Dom finally made it into the kitchen, he found me manically applying cheap plastic stick-on gems to a loo-roll tower. ‘Mum’s busy playing,’ I heard Cedd tell Dom, as he trotted off to fetch the oximeter.Just as Dom was beginning to feel better, it was reported that Boris was heading in the other direction, into hospital. I’ve been a slack Christian during this era of biblical plague. Churches are shut, even Catholic churches, and somehow that makes more of a difference than I thought it would. One of the reasons I converted was because the doors of Catholic churches were always open, the sanctuary lamp lit, and now they’re closed it feels as if someone’s turned off the spiritual stopcock. But what’s there to do for the sick now except pray? I left my polystyrene palace and got to my knees for Boris, and found to my surprise that my prayers flowed easily, as if carried along in a current of others.
After the uncertainty of the bug itself, we emerged from quarantine into the almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown. Everything and its opposite seems true. People are frightened and they’re calm; it’s spring and it’s not. Queueing’s a pain in the ass and the most fun you’ll have all day.
There’s been much talk of the spirit of the Blitz, but there’s something of the spirit of East Berlin, too. Social distancing is supposed to be a helpful and communal act, but people smile noticeably less. I think it’s guilt by association. Because it’s natural to steer clear of someone you dislike, when you keep your distance for other reasons, you feel instinctively hostile. There’s a woman jogger I’ve seen a few times now who runs around scowling with an arm held out horizontally to keep everyone at bay. If I didn’t have a child in tow, I’d be tempted to walk straight into her.
But then there are the birds, which are chirpier now there’s less noise to compete with, and the strange and wonderful feeling of returning to a world in which waiting is a thing. It’s like the 1990s all over again, people leaning on walls, staring into the distance, scuffing their trainers for something to do. And when you do meet a friend by chance on the street and stop for a guilty, distanced chat, it feels utterly joyful.
He couldn’t sack Cummings it would be like Emu sacking Rod Hull.
I'm off to throw stones at his tv aerial, see if i can knock it out of line.
County Durham being the Land of the Prince Bishops is kind of fitting right now.
Brilliant that chewkw is still on here. Always hilarious and good value.
I'm starting to think this is a well orchestrated plan to allow BJ to duck out now that he's achieved his objective of being PM for a while. Can I be first to give it an appropriate title.... Borexit.
and I'll lend him my special ladder .....
In reference to the civil service tweet, as mentioned on twitter by the excellent secret barrister...
I hope and expect that when this Civil Servant is identified, the government will accept that they were simply following instinct and doing what any reasonable person would do.
still on USA site
https://spectator.us/getting-coronavirus-bring-clarity/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
I’m starting to think this is a well orchestrated plan to allow BJ to duck out now that he’s achieved his objective of being PM for a while.
Or to distract from his hiding places he resorts too. Did you notice he bounded into the room, but shuffled out round shouldered? He’s either ill or can cope with the job - or both. Maybe a new PM will appear where Cummings will appear not to be that ones Special Friend for a bit in the pretence of a clean slate.
That daily brief was comedy gold. My favourite moment was an exasperated Robert Preston very clearly groaning and throwing his arms up at his questions being spectacularly not answered before they could flip the zoom feed on...
Utter, utter farce.
They'd never circle the waggons like this for any one in the cabinet... What on earth has Cummings got? Nobody is this indispensable...
still on USA site
https://spectator.us/getting-coronavirus-bring-clarity/amp/?__twitter_impression=true/blockquote >Looks like only the UK version removed, Dom must be getting sloppy, though I expect he is very busy trying to cover his tracks.
disgruntled employee
Imagine how many of those there are now.
On this occasion I think bozzer has done the right thing, people have lost their heads completely so gov need to rise above the noise. To be fair I've been applying common sense to all sorts of family situations since the vague lockdown began.
Will be interesting to see what pics turn up tomorrow, the trap is set now.
Quick question… Why are you all surprised, and what did you expect the PM to do?
Sack Cummings would have been the logical thing. Look at what we have all sacrificed over the last few months.
Actually, he should have walked and saved this shit storm
To be fair I’ve been applying common sense to all sorts of family situations since the vague lockdown began.
Did your workmates test positive for Covid19, then you and your family get symptoms, and then did you travel 250 miles from your home to be somewhere nicer, then you and your wife pretend that you stayed at home the whole time? All while everyone else with symptoms isolated themselves at home on you and your workmates’ instruction?
Populations get the governments they deserve...
If the UK, collectively, tolerates this then they deserve the consequences.
...and ironically, DC having not stayed in when he should will mean he's not going out anywhere for a very long time...
Kelvin I was disappointed (false hope) but I wasn't surprised in the least obviously no show Bojo thought he would need to do the briefing himself (either that or they all told him to eff off)
If the UK, collectively, tolerates this then they deserve the consequences.
What can we the people actually do though Crikey, right now to change this?
I’m too young to have really experienced Thatcher’s government. I know people didn’t like her but I never really understood the hatred that saw people throw parties when she died. I get it now.
At its worst there was at least the feeling that it was being done out of patriotism, a misplaced, uncaring heartless patriotism that was willing to exert the power of the state against its own citizens, but a feeling that they genuinely believed it was for the good of Britain. (I disagree but that’s a a different argument). This lot seem to be working to some other agenda with no thought for the long term consequences for the people and nation.
He had in my mind two obvious options.
Sack him.
Or come out and say it was wrong but he did it by instinct - and assert authority, even a fine, but then back him for his brilliance in leading policy or whatever as a reason why he doesn't sack him.
The second would be tricky when others have had to go for failure in judgement, but not untenable with a bit of brassneck.
What he did do beggars belief.
(can the Scottish Health Lead and Welsh whoever it was get their jobs back now?)
yup sack him or tell his time is up.
Scottish Tories were quite clear on what should happen to Dr Calderwood, and she wasn't infected.
https://twitter.com/Jackson_Carlaw/status/1246762299865604096
Cold war steve
What can we the people actually do though Crikey, right now to change this?
I don't know, I'm just shouting at pigeons at the moment, but public sentiment as with Captain Tom can be harnessed..