Expect to see Kuenssberg speaking to the press whilst wearing a Cummings maskâŠ
If heâs talking questions then heâs not going to resign.
Expect more gaslighting where weâre being brainwashed into questioning what we believed about the lockdown.
We will eventually come to believe that the âif youâre ill stay at home messageâ had all sorts of qualification to it to do with child care and based on conditions you or your children might have.
Stay at home meant he should have stayed at home.
Well obviously it wasnât necessary to qualify the exemption to the âStay At Homeâ message as he was the only person to whom it didnât apply. He didnât see the need to say âStay At Home Unless You Are Domonic Cumminsâ because nobody else is âDominic Cummingsâ
However Dominic Cummings from Bexley Heath and now residing in his second home in St Davids, Pembrokeshire has barricaded his front door and is resisting moves by the local Police to have him ejected.
As Iâve long stated, the public donât really respond to policy. They respond to stories, which is one of the reasons that the majority of the furloughed have been on gigantic fucking streaming binges.
Dominic Cummings knows this better than most. The Leave vote was secured on telling a better story than the Remain side could manage. They had nothing to neutralise the three word mantra âTake Back Controlâ with a public that had seen certain aspects of their lives spiral out of control.
He did it again, with a great deal of help from Keir Starmer and Hilary Benn, during the 2019 election campaign, successfully portraying the Labour party as an anti-democratic mob that were just interested in reversing the Brexit decision. Like I said, he had a lot of help, but again, he came up with a three word zinger, âdither and delayâ.
Those three words have come back to haunt the Prime Minister, Cummings mouthpiece. âDither and delayâ describes the governmentâs response to the COVID-19 much better than it described a concerted factional plot to lose a second general election vote.
Cummings is also now the story, and it is such an easy story for the public to comprehend. While theyâve been kept from their relatives, the Prime Ministerâs right hand man has been travelling infected and at the point of collapse for 260 miles up the country, with a four year old in the car (donât tell me they didnât stop somewhere) to be in close proximity with his parents, part of the highest risk group themselves.
This is official hypocrisy of the highest order, but I am not sure it is personal hypocrisy. I donât think Dominic âif some pensioners die, too badâ Cummings was ever on board with the lockdown. Thatâs not excusing him. Whether he agreed with it or not, even the narrative offered up by the PM is utterly damning.
Yeah, Paul Holmes is âmyâ MP and heâs getting dogâs abuse on Twitter from the Eastleigh massive for a) refusing to state his position on Cummings, b) saying heâll share his thoughts tomorrow (after Cummingsâ statement) and c) copy and pasting a central office message to his constituents that was either written by Cummings or approved by him.
There hasnât been much to report recently and like a lot of people we had got into a bit of an endless routine where days, weeks and months are starting to blur into one. However as we come back onto dayshifts over a sunny Bank Holiday weekend there are a few things worth mentioning.
As I have driven around today there have been no obvious signs to me that we are still in the middle of a world health pandemic with the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone. The volume of traffic on the roads is high, with caravans, mobile homes and camper vans all moving about along with a large number of motorcyclists having group âride outsâ, there are queues outside most of the shops I have passed and there are people walking and cycling all over the place enjoying the sun.
This has appeared slightly at odds with current government guidance which is:
âIt is still very important that people stay home unless necessary to go out for specific reasons set out in law. These include:
âą for work, where you cannot work from home
âą going to shops that are permitted to be open â to get things like food and medicine, and to collect goods ordered online or on the phone
âą to exercise or spend time outdoors for recreation
âą any medical need, to donate blood, avoid injury or illness, escape risk of harm, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person.â
I fully appreciate that there is what appears to be a lack of clarity around some of this guidance but for me (as one of the people asked to try and achieve what the government wants its citizens to do) the focus is on the words: âstay at home unless necessaryâ. There has been a lot of discussion about the wording and interpretation of the legislation currently in force and in the last 24 Hrs this has become a bit personal at the heart of the government with a debate raging over whether a senior advisor could have done what he did legally under the legislation.
As a police supervisor I occasionally get asked âCan weâŠâŠ.â questions similar to these:
-Can we make probationary officers make tea for the whole shift.
-Can we stop and search someone because they âdonât look rightâ.
-Can I claim overtime for being off late because Iâve spent too much time chatting and not doing the work I needed to do.
-Can we arrest people for annoying us.
-Can we tell the CPS how poor we think their understanding of the law is when they make a decision we donât like.
-Can we use force against someone without it being proportionate, legal and necessary.
The answer to all of these is of course, no. (I appreciate for some of the retired officers reading this, that may not always have been the case). But the question shouldnât be âcan weâ, more: âshould weâ. Police officers in the UK have several hundred yearsâ worth of laws to guide them but I have found that for the majority of what uniformed officers deal with, a little knowledge and a lot of common sense will get you through.
We have been tasked with delivering the aims set out by Government around the lock down. We have been asked to; Educate, Encourage and Explain the legislation prior to Enforcing it. If we take Enforcement action it will be expensive for the recipient and ultimately time consuming for us. We are being asked to interpret words like âreasonableâ which can often mean different things to different people, depending on experience and circumstances.
It may well be that riding your motorbike with your mates on a sunny day feels like âessential exerciseâ or going camping in the New Forest with your family is good for your âemotional wellbeingâ (not that this is my experience of going camping with my childrenâŠâŠ), so maybe the question shouldnât be; âcan youâ do these things but; âshould youâ.
Iâm no scientist and Iâm certainly not a politician but I watch documentaryâs and the news and it doesnât feel to me like we are out of harmâs way yet. So before you look to enjoy the bank holiday away from home please consider if this is something you âshould doâ at this stage of the Countryâs recovery.
The speeding vehicles are easy, we have calibrated speed guns and we are out in force conducting checks on the Countyâs roads in line with Force and National Priorities. The Covid legislation is less âblack and whiteâ and if we end up having a disagreement with you over whether what you are doing is or isnât legal we may have to let a magistrate make the final decision. Iâm not sure that this will be helpful for anyone, so please try to focus on what you âshouldâ be doing in order to reduce the spread of Covid, rather than concentrating on the many different interpretations of the current legislation that are available online, from my mate Johnâs cousin or via several different newspapersâŠâŠâŠâŠ.
Stay safe (ideally at home).
PS Dave Whitby and Salisbury CPT 5.
This is an interesting thread about Cummings claims to have been writing about Coronavirus since last year.
Perhaps they were just doing what any parent would - if they donât sell pictures they canât buy food for their (possibly unwell) family.
Point is CB, People/journos being wnakers with no masks and not social distancing etc. is the kind of stupidity that the various slogans and policy was designed to prevent⊠had we âthe Great British Publicâ the discipline and common sense to adhere to them⊠its the fact that the Governmentâs own master of policy and spin canât even stick to the stick to the guidelines that severely undermines any credibility in what they they to encourage the public to doâŠ
HIs supporters have tried to deflect away from this by pointing to others being shit, or crowds on beaches ⊠no shit, why bother listening to Government advice if they donât stick to it?
And then doing a fucking Prince Andrew and claiming he was testing his eyesightâŠ
I hate him for all he stands for, but that is no reason to resign. But his breaking of lockdown rules is, because it will indirectly lead to others ignoring the advice.
I think the guys a dick - I also think if he had come out and said straight away âLook I made a decision in haste etcâ he might have killed it early doors but he is a gobshite who doesnât give a fuck what you or I think.
The reason why this is such big news is that a lot of people see this as an opportunity to get rid of him - not because of he may or may not of broken the lockdown but for purely political reasons.
Labour (and the other parties) want him gone because he is effective
The civil service definitely want him and his reforms gone
A lot of Tories want him out for a variety of reasons, that they have been shafted by him, that it weakens Boris, that they get more power without him
And finally the media, who I suspect has feel that they have been snubbed and that they donât like their access controlled by him