Burnley Ace wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 3:26 pm
I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said. I’ve not defended Cummings per se, I’ve pointed out why he might, subjectively, have decided to do it. Durham police have come to the same conclusion.
My argument (mainly) has been for him to be treated in a way consistent with other people (especially MPs) and proportionally. I’ve also highlighted where people have deliberately interpreted what he has said to suit their position even when that is not what has been said hence the semantics and punctuation!!
I suspect there are some on here who will try to argue that you can imply something from Cummings statement but cannot imply anything from the police statement
I don't think a reasonable person would disagree about Cummings trip to Durham,there's grey lines but he's certainly got a valid argument that is was for childcare reasons.
Where he might have made a minor misjudgement and seemingly the police came to this viewpoint is in the BC journey.
Now if he'd have come out and addressed these points and admitted his errors earlier then the subsequent media storm might not have ensued,the guy's only human like the rest of us he isn't immune to mistakes.
What appears to have riled up the public on all the political divides is his apparent lack of contrition.
It's amazing how far a simple apology will go to absolve yourself of blame.
And the way the cabinet attempted to defend him turned into a comedy show of it's own hence why some of their personal ratings slumped badly.
I''m more concerned about the negative effect it may have on the next phase of this test & trace strategy,that's my fear that public trust in the government is completely undermined and they don't participate in the scheme,because the scheme will ultimately only work if the public buy into it.
To summarise has Dominic Cummings done anything illegal no he hasn't.
Were his actions advisable for a senior government adviser in hindsight probably not,but in hindsight we'd all make different calls.
It's totally up to the PM if he wishes to dispense with Mr Cummings services or not,but he needs to be aware that he might lose support if he chooses to retain him,that's a political calculation he'll have to make.
And it appears he's willing to take the short-term hit to his polling numbers to keep Mr Cummings in post.
The dilemma for Labour is how long do they keep this story running.
If it wasn't so serious it'd be a great soap opera.
This user liked this post: Zlatan