I don't think hes an idiot. I suppose he prefers to be thought of as that rather than a duplicitous, backstabbing creep.
UK Politics - Weeny, Weedy, Weaky
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I don't think hes an idiot. I suppose he prefers to be thought of as that rather than a duplicitous, backstabbing creep.
Manfred Belheim
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Oh dear. Well pardon me for expressing my opinion on an internet forum. I'm deeply apologetic that it wasn't interesting or surprising enough for you to warrant more than a couple of paragraphs in response. I'll obviously endeavour to only relate Earth-shatteringly shocking anecdotes or things that you personally deem relevant in future. I should probably have PM'd you to run it by you first before I posted it in hindsight, what was I thinking. Obviously a personal anecdote was a deeply unfitting response to someone else's personal anecdote. Some sort of peer-reviewed statistical study would have been far more appropriate now that I think about it.
As far as I'm aware there isn't any lockdown law, there are just guidelines and for the most part we're expected to use common sense. Yes the police have been given extra powers to... well... police the guidelines, but I'm not aware of anyone facing any serious consequences for doing similar things, unless you consider being filmed by a drone to be a serious consequence. There have, however, been quite a lot of stories about the police being completely unreasonable and trying to bully people and my sympathies have not been with the police for any of the stories I've heard. Frankly I see people out on the street every day who are flouting more egregiously than Mr Cummings did. The only obvious bone of contention in his story is the distance between London and Durham, but since he didn't walk there, high fiving and kissing everyone he met on the way, and since this virus is pretty much everywhere and not geographically constrained to London in any particular way, I fail to see how that actually really matters at all anyway.
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You would be wrong, then. Additionally, there are also concerns about what the legislation itself could mean.
To finish, "other people are breaking the law too" is not the defense you perhaps meant it to be. The virus is wide-spreading, yes. The entire point of lockdown is to contain that spread, to help alleviate the burden on our emergency services and hopefully reduce one of the worse (if not the worst) daily death tolls in Europe.
They are having to review fines handed out for what Cummings did, because obviously if he did it it cannot be a crime, so those people cannot be fined. That is the way the law usually works, isn't it?
Beeb said:
I would say it is kafkaesque to have "to infer what the law is by looking at what the nobles do, but perhaps the nobles are just exempt from the law", but in reality the british gov is the Benny Hill show.
Good God, we really are in Bizarro World, aren't we?
Manfred Belheim
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Well if people are getting their fines reviewed as a result, I can only conclude that his actions have had a net positive effect 
Manfred Belheim
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Hmm okay so.. do you share those concerns? I presume you do or else it would be weird for you to bring them up. But if so, is it not then odd that you seem to be demanding swift and decisive action against someone apparently flouting that legislation? Are you for it or against it? Hard to tell.
It wasn't meant to be a defence, it was pointing out the hypocrisy of those screaming blue murder about this one person flouting the rules, whilst greeting the news that half the country are attending mass gatherings in parks with little more than a shrug.
Yes that's lovely of you to remind me, thank you. But how does sitting in your own car for four hours contribute to the spread more than, for example, going for a walk around your suburb during which you walk past a bunch of people who are also out for a walk? It doesn't does it. For all intents and purposes he might as well have teleported to Durham for all the interaction he will have had with other humans en route. It would only matter if Durham was a Corona-free zone, but it isn't because it's everywhere. I don't think you can really have missed my point there so I'm not sure why you're acting like you did.
Well if people are getting their fines reviewed as a result, I can only conclude that his actions have had a net positive effect
For those people.
Those crowded onto beaches and at beauty spots using his behaviour as an excuse for their actions doesn't seem as positive a result to me.
Well if people are getting their fines reviewed as a result, I can only conclude that his actions have had a net positive effect
Cummings is apparently now so powerful and indispensable to the country that his very actions get things retroactively made not an offence to ensure that he never did anything wrong!
A YouGov poll about whether Cummings should resign had reached 52% before his Monday address and had risen to 59% after the public had heard that shameful tissue of lies. Of course, since we all know that 52% is The Will of the People and may never be questioned, an extra 7% on top of that should just provide extra nails in the coffin.
Once again, wrong, because folks do criticise public gatherings. I guess it's convenient to assume any criticism of Cummings comes from this made-up demographic though.
Attempting to undermine criticism of Cummings by accusing people of hypocrisy is literally a defense. The same goes for attempting to play down any consequences of his breaking lockdown by comparison (to people out on a walk). I suggest you read what kind of travel is and isn't allowed - it should clear up your confusion on the differences.
But I'm pretty sure you know that, which is why I said all the way at the start your position was so unsurprising
EnglishEdward
Deity
Well, it appears that Dominic Cummings has been retrospectively editing his blog.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059
In my mind correcting simple errors in very recently issued comments is one thing, creating a false history is quite another.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059
In my mind correcting simple errors in very recently issued comments is one thing, creating a false history is quite another.
Manfred Belheim
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Well I presumed that if they were having their fines reviewed as a result of this then it would be because they had done something similar to this - i.e. gone on a long car journey or something, but basically kept away from other people. Like the people walking in the middle of nowhere that the police shamed with drone footage.
They've decided they aren't going to review any cases.
All it takes is two groups of people deciding to do a random walk in the middle of nowhere to increase the spread of the virus. This is why public travel has been so locked down - to control any spread, and understand the areas from which it can spread. It's not "nobody will catch the virus if they're all walking on the same road to the same shop". It's in the event of an outbreak, to know where to quarantine. As supposed to being forced to quarantine the entire damned Yorkshire Moors or something.
That might have been Matt Hancock panicking and saying anything to look good on TV, but then it's entirely possible that it was Govt policy... for about 30 minutes before another Cabinet minister decided otherwise.
I'm sure Boris had to ok it with his boss, Cummings, before it could be policy.
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