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UK Politics: National shortage of incompetence pads


Which Tyler

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3 minutes ago, mormont said:

Right. So largely, this press conference did nothing but confirm that the press coverage was all true, despite the PM saying yesterday that unspecified bits of it weren't true. It added nothing at all to the public understanding of what happened, did nothing to restore public confidence in the government advice, and did not even offer an apology.

What a waste of time.

 

It also told us that he believes that we're going to swallow that the best way to test your ability to drive when you're worried you might be so unwell that you can't is to drive 30 miles with your wife and child in the car to a beauty spot on your wife's birthday rather than just nipping around the block.

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15 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

He is actually trying to play the victim here, he’s really such a revolting human being. How can he still expect people to consider he acted reasonably?

I think it's possible for both to be true. He's obviously been through a stressful situation having falling ill while his family also fall ill, having had his uncle die and his political mentor taken into intensive care all in a short space of time and that must have been a horrible experience to live through. His account of social media threats to his family also seem sadly plausible.

Having said all that were all his actions reasonable and consistent with the regulations he himself put in place? I think they clearly aren't, particularly the Barnard's Castle trip. I don't think he did anything malicious but he did show some poor judgment.

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3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It also told us that he believes that we're going to swallow that the best way to test your ability to drive when you're worried you might be so unwell that you can't is to drive 30 miles with your wife and child in the car to a beauty spot on your wife's birthday rather than just nipping around the block.

Why drive on public roads at all when your Dad’s estate is large enough to include multiple residences and some private woods?

Some other questions I would like to have been asked:

Why did your infected wife take your son to hospital instead of the niece you had driven all that way to be near?

Why did you drive to pick them up when your eyesight was so impaired that several days later you still needed to go on a test drive?

Does your wife drive? If so, shouldn’t she have driven instead if your vision was potentially impaired (unless she also has this vanishingly rare side effect).

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3 minutes ago, Philokles said:

Does your wife drive? If so, shouldn’t she have driven instead if your vision was potentially impaired (unless she also has this vanishingly rare side effect).

Also:

Given that it has always been permissible to use public transport to get to work if other options aren't available, if he was returning to London for work and was unsure about whether he could drive safely then why not take the train?

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Also, could he not have asked for police protection if his family were threatened? I know the police were very stretched, but some kind of arrangement could surely have been managed? Even if partly technology-based? 

What strikes me is the way he seems to be living in la-lal-land as regards his importance in the scheme of things. Politically and possibly emotionally important to Boris (his bald weird lucky talisman) - yes. Important to managing the Covid crisis - no. Cummings has been at the top of government for less than a year. Senior civil servants who actually know how their ministries work are critical to the response. Who no doubt would be happy if Cummings would sod off back to his think tank and leave them to get on with actual work. 

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38 minutes ago, mormont said:

Because the one thing Cummings has got right is that he isn't accountable to us. 

This is all strange given the amount of mental energy you've given to raging about someone who isn't accountable to you. But at least you seem to agree that this has all been a total circus

30 minutes ago, mormont said:

It added nothing at all to the public understanding of what happened

Not sure you were watching the correct channel. Maybe it was because he was half an hour late you missed it. He did actually answer pretty much every question given to him, he fleshed out all the claims that had been made about his movements and his motivations. Given the amount of conjecture and bile in the media I think his giving his side was entirely warranted.

Of course I predict that nobody on this board will have watched that with anything other than boiling rage, and will interpret every single word as a lie. Already I see that rather than having listened to anything he's said, the conversation predictably leans towards eyesight. Obviously this is because when it became pretty clear that his reasons for going up to Durham were actually kind of reasonable given his circumstances, the only route of attack is his decision to test his eyesight out before driving down to London. 

He managed also to bat away pretty much every question thrown at him. Many of those giving pre prepared questions looked rather foolish jumping up and down in contrast to Cummings reasoned replies, especially after he had aquitted himself so well. 

Its just incredible this didn't happen earlier really. We've had an entire weekend of people screaming abuse, of the press running round in circles, argument and debate. Boris has been made to look weak and have to defend something he didn't need to if DC had simply come out earlier and explained what happened in the way he did. 

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33 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

This is all strange given the amount of mental energy you've given to raging about someone who isn't accountable to you. But at least you seem to agree that this has all been a total circus

Not sure you were watching the correct channel. Maybe it was because he was half an hour late you missed it. He did actually answer pretty much every question given to him, he fleshed out all the claims that had been made about his movements and his motivations. Given the amount of conjecture and bile in the media I think his giving his side was entirely warranted.

Of course I predict that nobody on this board will have watched that with anything other than boiling rage, and will interpret every single word as a lie. Already I see that rather than having listened to anything he's said, the conversation predictably leans towards eyesight. Obviously this is because when it became pretty clear that his reasons for going up to Durham were actually kind of reasonable given his circumstances, the only route of attack is his decision to test his eyesight out before driving down to London. 

He managed also to bat away pretty much every question thrown at him. Many of those giving pre prepared questions looked rather foolish jumping up and down in contrast to Cummings reasoned replies, especially after he had aquitted himself so well. 

Its just incredible this didn't happen earlier really. We've had an entire weekend of people screaming abuse, of the press running round in circles, argument and debate. Boris has been made to look weak and have to defend something he didn't need to if DC had simply come out earlier and explained what happened in the way he did. 

"Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?"

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Just now, lessthanluke said:

I don't really envy the police their job of making sure people are following the guidelines going forward

I wont be fucking bothering if I'm sent out on social distancing patrols this week. It's a fucking travesty. 

If I was a hairdressers I'd put up an eyesight test above the mirror, and crack on with cutting hair. 

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6 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Can we all agree not to get dragged down the rabbit hole of HOI's nonsensical ramblings above. 

And also agree that he clearly has access to excellent smack and/or hallucinogens.

 

Yup.

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1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Nice work guys, but shouldn’t you be out hurling abuse at people in the street and screaming at houses rather than abusing people online?

You cant drive across the country to scream abuse at people anymore than you can to test your eyesight. However if he wonders past mine (which seems plausible, he sure as fuck gets around), I'll lean out and throw a few fucks at him. 

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5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Nice work guys, but shouldn’t you be out hurling abuse at people in the street and screaming at houses rather than abusing people online?

 

Offering an acurrate assessement of Cummings' character isn't abuse.


Offering an acurrate assessment of your character isn't abuse.

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/25/busy-as-notting-hill-carnival-botany-bay-residents-bemoan-packed-kent-cove

Spoiler

“Here, lockdown is over,” said Barry Manners from the group, who on Monday morning said he caught a woman defecating on the road outside his seafront property. “She dropped her bikini bottoms and crouched down as her husband stood next to her smoking a cigarette,” he said, complaining that so many visitors had used the beach as a toilet that the sand was totally contaminated. The beach was “busier than any of us can ever remember”, he said. [....]

“They bring down a sound system and light a fire,” said Manners. “Normally when this happens what people are concerned about is the volume of music at 1am but now there’s the added thing of social distancing, and this Dominic Cummings thing. We have tens of thousands of people totally ignoring it and disrupting a lot of people in the process.” [....]

 

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