Cummings not going

This is the political entry I forewarned you about.  Now, there’s a lot I could write about concerning the UK response to Covid-19.  A lot.  Our Government haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory.

But I’m going to write about what kicked off at the weekend.  It revolves round a bloke called Dominic Cummings.

Now, I know that most of you will not have heard of Cummings.  So, here it is: he is a special advisor (or Spad) to the Government,  He’s the most powerful Spad as he is the Spad to Boris Johnson himself.  He was instrumental in the Leave campaign in the EU referendum, part of Johnsons leadership campaign and part of the Tory election campaign in December.

He considers himself a superforcaster, has written about wanting to destroy the current political system aqnd rebuild it in his image, seem a Chancellor quit and ran an advert looking for weirdos to work for the Government.  Weirdo was the precise word he used.

On the day it was revealed that the PM had Covid-19, he was seen running from Downing Street.  It was later revealed by his wife that Cummings was nearly hospitalised.

Now, at the time the governments advice was stay home.  Literally, the full thing was “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”.  This particularly applied if you had symptoms and it actually specified not to go to a second home if you have one whether you had symptoms or not.

On Friday night, The Guardian and The Mirror broke the story that when cummings was supposedly seriously ill with Covid-19, he, his wife, and their 4 year old son drove from London to Durham (a 260 mile journey) to stay with his parents.  The reason given for this? They needed childcare if they were unable to look after their son.

This pissed a lot of people off.  There are a lot of parents who were in the same situation who decided to stay home because that’s what the government said to do.  There are a lot of people who were unable to visit dying relatives, whatever they were dying of, because they were following the Governments advice.  There are a lot of people who could only watch the funeral of a loved one on a live stream because they followed the Government advice.  And here was the top Spad to the Government, one of the people who crafted the advice, ignoring it.

This led to a moment out of The Thick of It where a Government minister stood on a podium at the official daily briefing pleading with the press to please ask a question about the A66 being turned into a dual carriageway.

This would not be the last Thick of It moment.

Saturday night saw fresh revelations.  Not only had Cummings and his family journeyed to Durham, he had been spotted in a forrest.  In addition, at a time when they were supposed to have been isloating, it turns out they took a trip to the village of Barnards Castle and made a couple of stops.

The next day, Johnson himself did the daily briefing, something he had studiously avoided doing as much as possible.  At the beginning, he said that he had talked to Cum,mings, accepted his explanation and said that Cummings had simply used his judgement.

If this was supposed to put out the fire, it appears no-one noticed that the water had been replaced by petrol.  Because it came across that the PM was saying that all of the parents in that situation who did follow the Government advice that they are either stupid or de3ficient in parenting skills.

On Monday, with this still being the big topic of discussion, Cummings announced that he himself would be holding a press conference.  This is highly unusual.

After leaving everyone waiting for half an hour, Cummings came out.  What came next is not a The Thick of It moment.  It’s an entire special.  Here’s the story, as told by Dominic Cummings:

On the day that it was revealed that Johnson had Covid-19, Cummings got a call from his wife saying she was ill and thought it was Covid-19.  He then left immediately to be with her (this is the pic of him running).  When he got home, they realised she didn’t have Covid and she didn’t want him to stick around he went baqck to work.

At some point, he pondered what would happen if both of them got seriously ill.  Who would look after their son?  He talked about it with his wife and they decided they didn’t want to risk nyone in London getting Covid, so they would head to Durham where Cummings sister and nieces (it was previously his parents) could do so.  While in Durham, they lived in a cottage seperate from his parents and his sister and her famly.  He didn’t meet them, talking to them outdoors.

Him in the forrest was fine because the forrest in question is owned by his father.

While there, his son needed to be admitted to hospital.  As he and his wife were too ill to drive, they called an ambulance.  The next day, feeling better, Cumming drove to pick up his son.

And the trip to Barnard Castle?  This one is a doozy.

Having decided he should get back to work, Cummings was worried about driving back to London as he waqs having issues with his sight.  So, he bundled his wife and son into the car to go for an hour round trip drive to make sure it was safe.  After getting there with no issues, he talked about it with his wife, they decided to go back to London the next day.  On their way back to Durham, Cummings felt ill so they stopped and sat by the river for 15 minutes.  Further in the journey, his son needed the toilet so they stopped again for that and a bit of a play.

They drove back to London the next day.

Oh, and when asked, Cummings stated he had no regrets.

Yeah.

Johnson, again, did the daily briefing, during which he said his sight had been so badly affected by Covid.  It’s worth noting that sight problems is not a recognised symptom of Covid.

Police forces started tweeting that you should not, under any circumstances, drive if you have impared vision.

As an attempt to clear things up, it utterly failed.  the main thing to come from it was a new beer by Brewdog called “Barnard Castle Eye Test”.

The story isn’t going anywhere.  Enter Michael Gove.  Not content with saying he drove to test his eyes, he then gave us another Thick of It moment when, having been asked about a Bishop who called for Cummings to be sacked, he replied “I wish the Bishop well”.

Seriously.

Oh, and Durham Police have said just today that the trip to Durham waqs fine, but the trip to Barnard Castle might be against the law (for legal reasons here, might = was).  Guess which part Johnson is focussing on?

The Government are going full court press on Cummings being in the right and no-one can understand why.  Why waste all this policital capital, all this goodwill and trust, right when it’s needed to fight Covid, on a Spad?  A minister you could understand, but an advisor?

Will