Of course Cummings SHOULD resign, but he won't

[Soph0571]

Against all the actual rules when Cummings and his missus came down with Covid, rather than locking down their household and quarantining in place, they hopped into the car and drove 270 miles so her elderly parents could take care of the child while they were ill. Not in the spirit or in the letter of the lockdown rules, however they will try and spin it now they have been caught with their pants down.

In another era there would not even be a question. This should be resign or be sacked situation for the most senior official in Downing Street. BUT he isn't going to resign and BoJo is not going to sack him. They are arrogant, they are entitled, they are privileged and they do not think that the rules apply to them. Even when they are the ones who wrote the rules. They do not care what we think. They do not care how we feel. They care only for power, privilege and profit and as they sit with an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons they believe they are untouchable, and they are probably right. So, IMO Cummings will not be leaving number 10. Resigning would be the right thing to do, so of course he is not doing that.

[Celerity]

1. ...

[Denzil_DC]

2. In addition, Mary Wakefield, Cummings' wife, wrote at some length

in The Spectator about their experiences of COVID:

Cummings and his wife, Mary Wakefield, an editor at the Spectator, last month gave detailed accounts of how they coped under lockdown while having the symptoms of coronavirus:

Writing in the magazine, Wakefield said that Cummings rushed home to look after her when she began showing symptoms. A day later he began feeling “weird” and then couldn’t get out of bed. “Day in, day out for 10 days he lay doggo with a high fever and spasms,” she said.

The article goes on: “Just as Dom was beginning to feel better ... Boris was heading in the other direction, into hospital.” This was the evening when Cummings was first seen near Durham with the child. ...

Wakefield’s article does not say where they were during quarantine, but it adds: “After the uncertainty of the bug itself, we emerged from quarantine into almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown.” Wakefield has been asked to clarify whether the family were in their London home at the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/22/dominic-cummings-durham-trip-coronavirus-lockdown

Given what's now come out, it looks like their earlier accounts of working through COVID under lockdown were at least 90% bullshit.

Other high-flying heads in England and Scotland have rolled after breaching lockdown. Cummings is still not telling the truth (he denied receiving a warning from the police, for instance, whereas the police maintain they talked to him). For that alone, he should go. (There are obviously plenty of other reasons why he should do so.)

[Denzil_DC]

3. New eyewitness reports have blown the defence that Cummings

was trying to ensure childcare continued while he and his wife were ill:

New witnesses cast doubt on Dominic Cummings’s lockdown claims

...
The new testimony suggests Cummings left the home where he was staying in Durham to visit a town 30 miles away. He was allegedly spotted back in Durham on 19 April, days after he was photographed in London having recovered from the virus.
...
Ministers insisted he had stayed put once arriving at a property in Durham, where he had travelled after contracting the symptoms of coronavirus to seek the support from his extended family.
...
The two new witnesses were revealed in a joint investigation by the Guardian/Observer and the Sunday Mirror.

One saw him in Durham on 19 April, days after Cummings was photographed in London having recovered from the virus.

A week earlier Cummings was seen by another witness in Barnard Castle on Easter Day, 30 miles away from Durham, the investigation found. The town, which takes its name from the English Heritage site at its centre, is a popular destination for days out.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/23/new-witnesses-cast-doubt-on-dominic-cummingss-lockdown-claims

I'd say, as with the other recent cases of resignations for similar breaches, whether Cummings keeeps his job depends on how long new revelations contradicting the original story versions keep coming out.

Johnson has reportedly already expressed his "full confidence" in Cummings, so it's not looking good for him at the moment.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Cummings' defence: Everybody I know in London hates me so much that, even for the sake of my child,

they wouldn't have been willing to bring groceries to my door. My neighbours, my work colleagues, they all despise me. So I had to find blood relatives who have some sympathy for my child, if not me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Jonathan Pie:

"I'm angry that the government's advice appears to have changed from 'wash you hands' to 'stay at home' to 'check if you're going blind by operating heavy machinery on public roads' like some pisshead saying 'well I'm not sure if I'm safe to drive but there's only one way to find out - come on kids, we're going for a drive!' 'Any reasonable person would have done the same'".

Bonus: Michael Gove actually tried to claim he too had driven a car to check his eyesight, before Nick Ferrari laughed at him so much he had to give up - at 11:05: