Guardian & Mirror now reporting #Cummings didn’t know all the words to Dancing Queen and had to “hum some bits”

This clearly invalidates the last General Election, which will have to be rerun without Cummings, and paves the way for a People’s Vote

Predictable. And predictably wrong; I've never denied the existence of the CDC lab. What I did point out that the WIV lab is actually several miles from the wet market. After it was claimed in a video you posted - from some 12-year old Youtuber - that Huang Yanling, a researcher at the WIV was patient zero, spread the virus through the nearby market, before being, as 'everyone believes' secretly cremated, even though she moved away in 2015.

Do you still find that 'credible'? You did when you posted it. LOL.

I see Grant Shapps drew the short straw and was wheeled out to do the Sunday morning politics shows. Where he told Andrew Marr

We’ve never told people specifically where to locate themselves.

I must have misunderstood 'Stay Home', then. The contemporary official guidance includes

Essential travel does not include visits to second homes, camp sites, caravan parks or similar, whether for isolation purposes or holidays. People must remain in their primary residence. Not taking these steps puts additional pressure on communities and services that are already at risk.

Eight weeks to come up with a justification and it is full of holes.

Apology accepted.

So the kerfuffle about Cummings might itself cause a 2nd wave?

May 24, 2020 at 8:36 PM tomo

The first wave has been sufficient to kill climate science dreams of bankrupting world economies. With the slow drawn out recovery, no one is going to be stupid enough to give more taxpayer funding to lockdown the worlds enjoyment again.

https://twitter.com/katylindemann/status/1264589529299722241

He won't wear a crochet face mask either.

"assaulting his own child"?

Appears that you swallow the MSM crap. You are welcome to it

The only thing that Cummings did wrong was the trial drive to Barnards Castle. He shouldn't have driven if he wasn't fit and they shouldn't have stopped on that trial. At most it should have been a round trip. He had a reasonable expectation that his son would have already had the disease because he and his wife think they had it, but on testing at the hospital the kid wasn't positive. His wife seriously needs to learn to drive. He's got a point about the media making his family a target. A lot of people especially the media are using this as a weapon and are themselves giving certain sectors of the public an excuse for breaking lock down. Which is almost over anyway.

Cummings should answer most of the questions 'are you saying that I should have put my child at risk?' It's very hard for those who lost loved ones but the reason they couldn't visit them in hospital or care homes was nothing to do with the general lock down. I don't know many people who stuck rigidly to the rules anyway. One woman took to calling on solo neighbours to excuse walking her dog multiple times a day. Since the one walk a day rule was dropped I haven't seen her. The neighbours opposite have had a constant stream of visitors but smugly clap every Thursday. Most people have locked down or not to suit themselves. This faux outrage is about something other than covid19

The other thing that No 10 needs to point out is that Cummings was ill when he made these decisions, both before and after. We've all made stupid decisions when ill and there's a recognition that it affects you, even after you have mostly recovered.

The only thing that Cummings did wrong was the trial drive to Barnards Castle.

He did a lot more wrong than that, multiple rule breaches, but assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that that was the case, the trip was taken at a time when only essential travel was permitted under the rules. Rules most of us were observing. A family drive on Easter Sunday to a resort to test your eyesight (say what?) is not essential. A clear breach of the regulations. Neil Ferguson and Catherine Calderwood resigned for lesser or similar breaches, rather than undermine the credibility of the Government's messaging. (Do as I say, not as I do). Cummings' has not resigned reasoning that under his interpretation, he was suffering 'exceptional circumstances'. Well there are a lot of us in 'exceptional circumstances' who don't drive the length of the country, who have in fact remained in our primary residence - as his own Government's regulations clearly instruct us to do. His continuing to remain in his job will only fuel the viewpoint that it is OK to bend the rules if your boss is the PM.

One of the aims of Brexit was to free us from being governed by elite, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. How is that working out?

The Cummings family ended up in a hospital in Durham – 260 miles from home. That is precisely the reason the lockdown told people to stay at home if they get sick. So as not to spread the virus around the country.

Prof Colin Talbot, University of Manchester.

The other thing that No 10 needs to point out is that Cummings was ill when he made these decisions, both before and after. We've all made stupid decisions when ill and there's a recognition that it affects you

So you concede he made stupid decisions other than the lovely family day trip to Barnard's Castle. But yes, the appropriate thing to do when you've made an error of judgement is to acknowledge it and apologise for any harm caused. Cummings seems incapable of uttering the 'S-word', or indeed expressing any remorse or contrition, or admitting any error beyond the formulaic 'Reasonable people may disagree' crap. This is not going to cut it. He has an arrogance problem.

"But yes, the appropriate thing to do when you've made an error of judgement is to acknowledge it and apologise for any harm caused.

May 25, 2020 at 10:10 PM Phil Clarke"

When is Mann going to 'fess up?

Then on the 15th day, St Dom had risen again. And although, he was still feeling shit he felt ready to go back to London to start running the country again. There was just one small problem. His vision was playing up. So the obvious way to see if he was safe to drive was to pack his family into the car and take a 30-mile journey to Castle Barnard. Not sure if that’s quite in the DVLA guidelines.

There they had stopped and sat by the river for a bit – their entire conversation had been focused on the state of his eyesight – before heading off back to Durham for a walk in his private bluebell wood.

All this was said in a state of barely repressed anger. This statement was costing Dom dear. Classic Dom never explains and never apologises. And even though not a word of apology escaped his lips, you could sense that this whole exercise felt uncomfortably close to one. Just having to appear in front of journalists for whom he felt nothing but contempt and pretend to be Mr Polite Nice Guy was a humiliation he couldn’t bear.

Once the questions started, the mask began to crack. He was just doing what anyone else would have done in the same exceptional circumstances. Except they hadn’t been doing that. People in far more testing situations without the comfort of a second home some 260 miles away had obeyed the guidelines. Because they were mugs. The proles who weren’t able to think for themselves. If he had a fault, it was that he was just too loving and law-abiding a father. Regrets, he had a few. But then again too few to mention.

Time and again he was asked to apologise and every time he refused. Anything but that. Everything was totally above board, which is why he and his wife had both written stories in the Spectator that they knew to be misleading. Perhaps he and Mary had both been so delirious, it had slipped their minds to point out they hadn’t been in London.

John Crace

You've convinced me Phil, everyone off furlough and back to work. It was only Boris' and Cummings' idea to give evrryone a massive holiday with pay. The scientists, Labour and the SNP wanted people to follow 'business as usual' (see 2007 plans for a pandemic). Anyone without work to go to can be assigned a farm to earn their crust.

Oh dear.

May 25, 2020 at 10:28 PM Phil Clarke
Were the Hockey Stick's Peer Reviewers delirious and their judgement impaired?