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Dominic Cummings alleged breach of lockdown rules discussion

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alex397

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Maybe that's the whole point? We know that an awful lot of people are now terrified of leaving their homes because the "stay home save lives" message worked too well.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of Dominic Cummings's actions, people will now start to think "well if he can break the lockdown guidelines, why shouldn't I?". Which can only be a good thing if it means we come out of lockdown a lot quicker.

Well if that was the point, then its certainly an interesting strategy to stage this story.

And how can it be a good thing to come out of lockdown quickly? A good way to start a second wave. Its good we are coming out of it slowly, rather than quickly.
 
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Ianno87

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Well if that was the point, then its certainly an interesting strategy to stage this story.

Cummings's activities were 6-odd weeks ago, *and* there'd have to be collusion with the media not to release anything until now...
 

nlogax

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Where else was it meant to be held? It couldn't be inside because of the need for social distancing. How many outside studios or meeting places would be available at short notice? In this instance a video meeting would not have been as effective as a conference in person.

Anywhere but Number 10. College Green is pretty quiet at the moment and just down the road.
 

MikeWM

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Maybe that's the whole point? We know that an awful lot of people are now terrified of leaving their homes because the "stay home save lives" message worked too well.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of Dominic Cummings's actions, people will now start to think "well if he can break the lockdown guidelines, why shouldn't I?". Which can only be a good thing if it means we come out of lockdown a lot quicker.

I suggested that yesterday, and today adds to the evidence - but unfortunately I don't think the government are clever enough to have come up with that 8-)

Anger is definitely the quickest way to cut through fear, though, so the (probably accidental) consequences still move us in the right direction.
 

Busaholic

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Now that Cummings has released his full and frank statement, presumably if evidence of another 'trip' during his Durham sojourn were to be produced then it would be a sackable/resignation matter? Wouldn't bank on it though. Could have been a sleepwalk-by-day, a rare medical condition (Wakeingsisis Castilis).
 

BJames

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Now that Cummings has released his full and frank statement, presumably if evidence of another 'trip' during his Durham sojourn were to be produced then it would be a sackable/resignation matter? Wouldn't bank on it though. Could have been a sleepwalk-by-day, a rare medical condition (Wakeingsisis Castilis).
I was thinking this earlier. One single piece of contradictory evidence would jeopardise his whole statement. Nothing to worry about if he was indeed entirely honest...

The driving to test eyesight thing was not really the best thing that he could have said in this conference. Perhaps his license should be revoked, or should he be questioned under dangerous driving guidelines? Being in control of a car whilst unfit to drive? It just makes no sense what he's saying.
 

BJames

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A dismissive message against Cummings from Prof Jackie Cassell, the deputy dean of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School:

London has lots of ITU (intensive treatment unit) and hospital beds as a major population centre. Its residents should not be decamping to places where they might need – and in this case did need – to use another region’s hospitals and health care facilities.

This is an important reason why Cummings should have stayed put. And he, like all senior government advisers, will have been well aware of this.
 

brad465

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I've just checked the UK Government and Parliament Petitions website, expecting to see that several petitions had been submitted calling for Cummings to be sacked, but was surprised that I couldn't find any. Maybe people are thinking that these petitions generally don't achieve very much, or maybe they are just not as angry about the situation as I thought.
Not something that would be determined by parliament, surely? So pointless.
Several have been attempted but rejected, as reading the section with their reasons they don't permit petitions pertaining to an individual's position or honour recommendation. There were rejections about Capt Tom Moore getting a knighthood for the same standardised reason (obviously he was awarded that anyway).
 

bspahh

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I was thinking this earlier. One single piece of contradictory evidence would jeopardise his whole statement. Nothing to worry about if he was indeed entirely honest...

The driving to test eyesight thing was not really the best thing that he could have said in this conference. Perhaps his license should be revoked, or should he be questioned under dangerous driving guidelines? Being in control of a car whilst unfit to drive? It just makes no sense what he's saying.

I think the eyesight test was a lie.

He had gone for a day out for his wife's birthday, was spotted twice and wanted an explanation.

If he needed to test his eyesight, he can do that with an app or without driving.

His wife can drive. If he needed to see if he was OK to drive, he could have driven on his own, on quiet local roads. If the safety of his family was of such concern, why risk them? Nonsense.

If he told the truth and apologised, then it would have blown over. This will continue ...
 

philosopher

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Well if that was the point, then its certainly an interesting strategy to stage this story.

And how can it be a good thing to come out of lockdown quickly? A good way to start a second wave. Its good we are coming out of it slowly, rather than quickly.

As much as I do not like the way this incident has been handled, I too do not think the government are not trying to undermine the lockdown. The policies the government have announced over the past few weeks, such as mass testing, setting up large scale contact tracing and
the 14 day quarantine of international arrivals only really makes sense if the government's aim is to suppress the spread of the virus as much as possible.

Therefore I think the government definitely want to avoid a second wave, however their handling of this may make their job harder.
 

Mojo

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I think the eyesight test was a lie.
The idea of going for a drive on non major roads to check your fitness to drive makes sense. The day of the family trip to Barnard Castle could have also been justified on the grounds of exercise (as the trip happened after all family members no longer had symptoms, and he had also been cleared by a doctor). Quite why a story about eyesight was given I don’t really understand.
 

bspahh

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Cummings mentioned that he had written about Corona virus on his blog a year ago.

Faisal Islam is an economics editor at the BBC. In this thread, he looked for the blog post.


The only article which mentions SARS or Corona virus is https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03...o-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ which has a date of March 14th 2019, but when you look at the Internet Archive wayback site, that section was only added on April 14th 2020.

This shows the differences

(edit 23:26 May 25th)
On March 1st 2019 https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/ Cummings wrote

This matches research just published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on the most secure (Level 3/enhanced and Level 4) bio-labs. It is now clear that laboratories conducting research on viruses that could cause a global pandemic are extremely dangerous. I am not aware of any mainstream media in Britain reporting this (story
https://www.graphicnews.com/en/page...a17fN1a3lhyetHTCwZiesgEBT36l9RXUydyWaStkEmytQ ).
 
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Spamcan81

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The idea of going for a drive on non major roads to check your fitness to drive makes sense. The day of the family trip to Barnard Castle could have also been justified on the grounds of exercise (as the trip happened after all family members no longer had symptoms, and he had also been cleared by a doctor). Quite why a story about eyesight was given I don’t really understand.

No it doesn't. If you have any doubts about your fitness to drive, you don't endanger others by having a tryout on public roads.
 

Chester1

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The decision to go to Durham is defendable and within the law. Durham police haven't taken any action on it and no similar case with a fine being given has become public. I am not sure how many people attacking that decision would be happy to look after a friends 4 year old autistic child when both parents are ill with suspected covid-19 and knowing the child might infect them and their own family. I think many might do it but would be extremely annoyed they had been put in that situation, its the sort of risk people are expected to take for family and not friends. His sister and nieces live on a third cottage on the farm and its reasonable to ask them to do it he had also become unable to look after his son.

The Barnard Castle stuff takes the mick and that's what he should be fired for. If he had stayed at the cottage until they were all eligible for tests and been negative then I suspect it would only be the usual suspects attacking him. He didn't and should have been fired once the day trip became known.
 

bspahh

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The idea of going for a drive on non major roads to check your fitness to drive makes sense. The day of the family trip to Barnard Castle could have also been justified on the grounds of exercise (as the trip happened after all family members no longer had symptoms, and he had also been cleared by a doctor). Quite why a story about eyesight was given I don’t really understand.

If he has to drive 270 miles, a practice drive would be fine, but not with the family in place. That does not make sense.

Driving 30 miles for a day out on Easter Sunday, to a tourist site, was against the advice for exercise at that time. If he had said that was the reason for the trip, and apologised, then it would have been a political embarrassment, but not the end of his career.
 

SuperNova

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Maybe that's the whole point? We know that an awful lot of people are now terrified of leaving their homes because the "stay home save lives" message worked too well.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of Dominic Cummings's actions, people will now start to think "well if he can break the lockdown guidelines, why shouldn't I?". Which can only be a good thing if it means we come out of lockdown a lot quicker.

A lot of people aren't scared of leaving their homes - they're scared of contracting a virus that's killed tens of thousands of people. I'm not quite sure why you keep saying this messaging has worked too well - it was necessary to halt the spread of this virus, one which is still quite alive given a hospital has today had to shut up shop to new patients due to an influx of new Covid-19 cases.

Sadly it seems we're sleepwalking into a second spike, with a NHS that's not even recovered from the first.
 

Darandio

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The idea of going for a drive on non major roads to check your fitness to drive makes sense.

It doesn't, not even if he had done it alone.

The day of the family trip to Barnard Castle could have also been justified on the grounds of exercise (as the trip happened after all family members no longer had symptoms, and he had also been cleared by a doctor). Quite why a story about eyesight was given I don’t really understand.

No it wasn't justified. The man was situated at a location with ample space for exercise in it's own grounds, more than 99% of us. If that wasn't enough, there are dozens of suitable secluded locations within 3-4 miles. He went on a jolly.
 

Mojo

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Driving 30 miles for a day out on Easter Sunday, to a tourist site, was against the advice for exercise at that time. If he had said that was the reason for the trip, and apologised, then it would have been a political embarrassment, but not the end of his career.
The NPCC / College of Policing enforcement guidelines published on 16 April (ie. 4 days after said trip) was not a change of guidelines or rules but a clarification of the existing position on the law that applied on the date of the trip.

So quite why the story about checking eyesight was needed remains a mystery.

It doesn't, not even if he had done it alone.
Note that this isn’t what Cummings said, it is what I said. Going for a practice drive before you have to make a long drive after having not driven for a while makes perfect sense. I’ve no idea why this wasn’t said. There was also nothing wrong with going for a drive for such a distance to exercise.
 

Darandio

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What doesn’t make sense about going for a drive to check fitness? Note that this isn’t what Cummings said...

Indeed, he said to test his eyesight. I'm not sure which part of that you cannot see doesn't make sense.
 

Djgr

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The idea of going for a drive on non major roads to check your fitness to drive makes sense. The day of the family trip to Barnard Castle could have also been justified on the grounds of exercise (as the trip happened after all family members no longer had symptoms, and he had also been cleared by a doctor). Quite why a story about eyesight was given I don’t really understand.

When being able to drive to your place of exercise was introduced it was stated that the driving time had to be reasonable in relation to the time spent exercising. So my take on this was for an hour's exercise it was okay to drive fifteen minutes there and fifteen minutes back.

Durham to Barnard Castle is about an hour. And he didn't actually do any exercise anyway!
 

Mojo

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Indeed, he said to test his eyesight. I'm not sure which part of that you cannot see doesn't make sense.
I said that it would have made sense to go for a drive to check your fitness. I did not say it made sense to go on a drive to check your eyesight. I think you have totally misunderstood what my post actually said.
 

infobleep

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He clearly broke rules by driving to Barnard Castls
Driving to Durham is likely to be within the rules and guidance. Not to mention laws. So whether one thinks it wise or not, I doubt he can be charged for that. However Barnard Castle is totally different kettle of fish.

It does call into question whether more emphasis should have been placed on families being able to travel if they had children. Perhaps in hindsight that was glossed over to much.
 

bspahh

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The NPCC / College of Policing enforcement guidelines published on 16 April (ie. 4 days after said trip) was not a change of guidelines or rules but a clarification of the existing position on the law that applied on the date of the trip.

So quite why the story about checking eyesight was needed remains a mystery.

From this transcript https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-durham-full-text-read-lockdown-a9531856.html of the statement:

We drove for roughly half an hour and ended up on the outskirts of Barnard Castle town. We did not visit the castle. We did not walk around the town. We parked by a river. My wife and I discussed the situation. We agreed that I could drive safely, we should turn around, go home. I felt a bit sick. We walked about 10 to 15 metres from the car to the river bank nearby. We sat there for about 15 minutes. We had no interactions with anybody. I felt better. We returned the car. An elderly gentleman walking nearby appeared to recognise me. My wife wished him Happy Easter from a distance, but we had no other interaction.

We headed home. On the way home, our child needed the toilet. He was in the back seat of the car. We pulled over to the side of the road, my wife and child jumped out into the woods by the side of the road. They were briefly outside. I briefly joined them. They played for a little bit and then I got out of the car, went outside. We were briefly in the woods.

I found this article from April 16th. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...der-lockdown-rules-police-advised-coronavirus

It says that its allowed to drive somewhere for exercise if you spend more time exercising than you do driving. He didn't.
 

Chester1

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He clearly broke rules by driving to Barnard Castls
Driving to Durham is likely to be within the rules and guidance. Not to mention laws. So whether one thinks it wise or not, I doubt he can be charged for that. However Barnard Castle is totally different kettle of fish.

It does call into question whether more emphasis should have been placed on families being able to travel if they had children. Perhaps in hindsight that was glossed over to much.

Glad to see another person that doesn't think what he did was either all ok or all wrong. The original journey was clearly within the law. There has been no fine given (that has reached public attention) for anything remotely similar. With an ill wife, knowing you had almost certainly been infected (both by your wife and by colleagues) and with a young child, going somewhere were you sister and nieces are a few metres away to help in the event of you getting ill too was a reasonable decision. The law is clear that lockdown laws and guidance do not override child safety. The idea he shouldn't have taken the safest lawful option for his family because of how it appears is virtue signalling.

The Barnard Castle trip was clearly a day trip and he should be fired for it. Its sad to see how polarised much of political discourse on this is.
 

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ashkeba

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Where else was it meant to be held? It couldn't be inside because of the need for social distancing. How many outside studios or meeting places would be available at short notice? In this instance a video meeting would not have been as effective as a conference in person.
Can we hold large work gatherings in our gardens now?

I know video conferencing is not ideal for some things but the rest of us are struggling on with it. The rules do not seem to apply to Lord Dominic.
 

bspahh

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Does it matter if Cummings tells a lie about a day trip with his family? I think it does. He has had plenty of chances to tell the truth, apologise and move on.

Cummings is closely involved with a £250m contract that has bypassed many of the normal processes for checking that a deal is sound. The contact tracing relies on trust from the whole population. If Cummings can't be trusted to follow rules when they are in the open, how are they to be trusted for things that are out of the limelight.

Chris Huhne went to prison for perjury, not for speeding.
 

trebor79

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From this transcript https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-durham-full-text-read-lockdown-a9531856.html of the statement:



I found this article from April 16th. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...der-lockdown-rules-police-advised-coronavirus

It says that its allowed to drive somewhere for exercise if you spend more time exercising than you do driving. He didn't.
If the visit to the woods he describes on the way back from Barnard Castle is to explain his being sighted in Houghall Woods, he's lying. Barnard Castle to Durham would not take you past Houghall Woods. I know the area very well.
 
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