[Politics] Dominic Cummings v H&SC and S&T select committees *Official Match Thread*

[Lever]

Today in a nutshell...

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This is absolutely my take on it. Both men have 'played political games' for their own gratification and besmirched the high positions held to the extreme detriment of their fellow citizens.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Quite. As long as people think the government are getting rid of foreigners and are making sure we don't let "the wokes" take over, they will keep voting for them. It's very hard to oppose lies if people want to believe those lies.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, it is easier to fool people, than to convince people they have been fooled.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Huh?

Anyway, adults in the room are interested in what this known liar has to say and how much of it can be corroborated. From what I heard yesterday, a lot of it rang true for anyone paying attention.

The problem, as has been said already is that when a known liar has already helped create a culture where the truth is secondary, too few people are interested when they do actually spill some truth beans.

Quite funny seeing NSC's most prolific Brexit cheerleaders all getting in a tizzy and absolutely scandalised at the thought of people listening to this utterly dishonest man, Dominic Cummings, *checks notes*, campaign director of Vote Leave. Perhaps yesterday would have been a good idea to ask where the 350 million quid a week for the NHS was.

In that you would have believed him, yes it would have been

 

[Baker lite]

Dominic Cummings v H&SC and S&T select committees *Official Match Thread*

Ah, good old Godwins law plus doubling down with ISIS, Milosovic references... well played sir [emoji122]

Rather disappointed to be truthful...no mention of Brexit or white privilege. Would have expected one of the usual suspects to have mentioned that by now...


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[Klaas]

In that you would have believed him, yes it would have been

Seeing as Cummings himself described it as “a brilliant communications ploy” saying that it “…worked much better than I thought it would”. then no, no I wouldn't. Because it was easily fact checkable.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Seeing as Cummings himself described it as “a brilliant communications ploy” saying that it “…worked much better than I thought it would”. then no, no I wouldn't. Because it was easily fact checkable.

You can’t fact check a claim about the future. Carry on tying yourself in knots.

 

[Randy McNob]

unsurprising the Bojo fan club leap to his defence despite Cummings pretty much stating the obvious, that Boris and his sycophants shouldn't be in charge of a pair of scissors let alone in high office

doff cap...

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

unsurprising the Bojo fan club leap to his defence despite Cummings pretty much stating the obvious, that Boris and his sycophants shouldn't be in charge of a pair of scissors let alone in high office

doff cap...

I can’t see one post on here ‘leaping to Boris’ defence. Plenty pointing out the hypocrisy of various NSC posters which is quite different. Your interpretation is such a mangling of the facts that I am beginning to wonder whether all this stuff about lying is just some sort of deflection, with people seeing their own characteristics in politicians.

 

[vegster]

Oh, I think he is telling the truth about the rotten government, I just wish it was testimony from someone with a bit more credibility. Having said that, there is something of a shortage of credible characters around at the moment.

I imagine the vast majority of the accusations levelled at this truly diabolic government will evaporate within a few months and I very much think Johnson will step down, walk away to write his book and cash his after-dinner cheques rubbing his pudgy hands together. I am also in no doubt that he will be very pleased with himself as he thinks "They thought what I was accused of was bad? If only they knew what I was really up to"...

They were all purged when Johnson was elected leader of the Tory party then further purged at the subsequent election, any of those with a conscience or an ability to see beyond party politics was forced out such as Javid and Gaulke while the old wise heads such as Hammond and Clarke effectively jumped befor ethey were pushed.

 

[WATFORD zero]

I can’t see one post on here ‘leaping to Boris’ defence. Plenty pointing out the hypocrisy of various NSC posters which is quite different. Your interpretation is such a mangling of the facts that I am beginning to wonder whether all this stuff about lying is just some sort of deflection, with people seeing their own characteristics in politicians.

NSC is lucky to have a neutral such as yourself to give a balanced view when the two extremes start bickering

 

[Randy McNob]

NSC is lucky to have a neutral such as yourself to give a balanced view when the two extremes start bickering

 

[Hotchilidog]

Stunned that people are just blithely dismissing the revelations yesterday. The charges are serious and despite the mixed motivations of Dominic Cummings should be treated as such.

1. Having run down the NHS with a decade of austerity and ignoring the findings of Operation Cygnus this government left us woefully unprepared for a pandemic which had topped the list of threats to this country.

2. When the pandemic did actually hit, it turns out we had no effing idea what to do and thought that letting everyone getting it was an ideal solution despite the evidence that we had from mainland Europe that this would be a disaster. You can share the blame around for this one but still all who were involved are stained with its failure, including Cummings.

3. Once the severity of the situation became clear, the response was woefully inadequate. The hospitals did not have enough PPE, care home residents were basically sent to their deaths, and dithering meant that we lock downed way too late because the PM (in a state of denial about the seriousness of this) lacked the balls and intelligence to do it.

4. Once in lockdown, we failed to learn from other countries who had successfully implemented test, track and tracing systems and introduced a botched version of our own which is still failing to this day. We failed to secure our borders and allowed travel from countries that were riddled with covid, a policy that has only marginally been reversed a whole flipping YEAR later. Even then we held the door open for the Indian variant.

5. Moving swiftly on to the autumn/winter period. Despite having the full knowledge and experience of the spring debacle we then moved on to the complacent let's reheat the economy and stuff the people phase. Interesting that Cummings failed to criticise Sunak (maybe wants another job the slimy old f*ck). Still we moved on to the spreader event that was eat out to help out, and then most criminally the end of year wave that was to prove the most deadly phase of the pandemic. By September we had all the information to hand about how the virus worked, the PM himself had first hand experience of terrible the disease was, yet the cavalier attitude of we won't lockdown only the oldies die prevailed. The government fought against the tide for a few deadly weeks but eventually we found ourselves in the longest and harshest lockdown yet, and yes Boris the 'bodies did indeed pile up.'

I have barely even scratched the surface of everything that government and the PM in particular got wrong in this pandemic. We did not need Dominic Cummings to tell us all this. It is all there in the public record and had been uncovered by a handful of excellent journalists such as those on the Sunday Times Insight team.

That said to finally hear from someone in the room was important as it adds weight to the growing pile of evidence proving the weakness of our institutions and the negligence of this PM, Sec of State and government in particular.

The government has handled this pandemic badly. At every turn where there was a decision to be made they initially made the wrong one. The result of which many thousands of people died who need not have. Anyone who claims to be 'bored' by this quite frankly has my complete and utter contempt.

 

[Hugo Rune]

unsurprising the Bojo fan club leap to his defence despite Cummings pretty much stating the obvious, that Boris and his sycophants shouldn't be in charge of a pair of scissors let alone in high office

doff cap...

What’s telling for me is the initial responses from Johnson & Hancock.

PM - Something around always trying to save lives during the pandemic (which is consistent with Cummings view that the PM prioritised the economy or saving lives over the long term by protecting people’s livelihoods).

MH - He has worked incredibly hard during the pandemic. (I can’t remember the bit where Cummings accused MH of not working hard, it was about lying and being utterly incompetent at his job, which from the outside, has always been obvious).

 

[Klaas]

You can’t fact check a claim about the future. Carry on tying yourself in knots.

Huh? We never sent the Eu 350 million pounds a week and the guy who came up with the slogan admits it was just a 'ploy' and here you are still arguing over it?

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Rather disappointed to be truthful...no mention of Brexit or white privilege. Would have expected one of the usual suspects to have mentioned that by now...


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My bingo card is nearly full [emoji106]

Lots of pent up angst with a huge backlog of tweets and vids waiting to be unleashed since the Bear pit closure



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[beorhthelm]

...

the policy to let people get it was from the health department, and emptying the hospitals was part of the planned response. PHE had plenty of funding for strategy, planning and procedures, including track and trace, seems they hadnt done much and relied on local authorities, who didnt have the resource nor should they be planning national strategy. its too easy to blame lack of resources for healthcare, now experts are saying its lack of resources in social care thats the problem. which is it? i know they are not mutually exclusive but should funding go into health to increase surplus capacity hospitals to cope with the surge, or into social care to provide the surplus capacity there, or both? interesting that a series of experts being interviewed are defending the systems and institutions because Cummings' scattergun is hitting them too not just the politicians. but everyone did everything they could in their patch apparently.

 

[essbee1]

Stunned that people are just blithely dismissing the revelations yesterday. The charges are serious and despite the mixed motivations of Dominic Cummings should be treated as such.

1. Having run down the NHS with a decade of austerity and ignoring the findings of Operation Cygnus this government left us woefully unprepared for a pandemic which had topped the list of threats to this country.

2. When the pandemic did actually hit, it turns out we had no effing idea what to do and thought that letting everyone getting it was an ideal solution despite the evidence that we had from mainland Europe that this would be a disaster. You can share the blame around for this one but still all who were involved are stained with its failure, including Cummings.

3. Once the severity of the situation became clear, the response was woefully inadequate. The hospitals did not have enough PPE, care home residents were basically sent to their deaths, and dithering meant that we lock downed way too late because the PM (in a state of denial about the seriousness of this) lacked the balls and intelligence to do it.

4. Once in lockdown, we failed to learn from other countries who had successfully implemented test, track and tracing systems and introduced a botched version of our own which is still failing to this day. We failed to secure our borders and allowed travel from countries that were riddled with covid, a policy that has only marginally been reversed a whole flipping YEAR later. Even then we held the door open for the Indian variant.

5. Moving swiftly on to the autumn/winter period. Despite having the full knowledge and experience of the spring debacle we then moved on to the complacent let's reheat the economy and stuff the people phase. Interesting that Cummings failed to criticise Sunak (maybe wants another job the slimy old f*ck). Still we moved on to the spreader event that was eat out to help out, and then most criminally the end of year wave that was to prove the most deadly phase of the pandemic. By September we had all the information to hand about how the virus worked, the PM himself had first hand experience of terrible the disease was, yet the cavalier attitude of we won't lockdown only the oldies die prevailed. The government fought against the tide for a few deadly weeks but eventually we found ourselves in the longest and harshest lockdown yet, and yes Boris the 'bodies did indeed pile up.'

I have barely even scratched the surface of everything that government and the PM in particular got wrong in this pandemic. We did not need Dominic Cummings to tell us all this. It is all there in the public record and had been uncovered by a handful of excellent journalists such as those on the Sunday Times Insight team.

That said to finally hear from someone in the room was important as it adds weight to the growing pile of evidence proving the weakness of our institutions and the negligence of this PM, Sec of State and government in particular.

The government has handled this pandemic badly. At every turn where there was a decision to be made they initially made the wrong one. The result of which many thousands of people died who need not have. Anyone who claims to be 'bored' by this quite frankly has my complete and utter contempt.

I'm no supporter of Johnson and his mates; but I refuse to take seriously anything that that ****** Cummings says. What about the
people that he indirectly killed? Apologies are easy when it suits.

 

[stewart12]

I actually struggle to view the current administration in ideological terms. Unfortunately the current bunch of shysters will go along with anything to keep themselves in power.

If I had to, they actually remind me of a dysfunctional Communist regime, such are the complexities of modern politics.

yes, Boris Johnson in particular is very hard to pin down in terms of his actual beliefs..... I think it's ultimately because his beliefs are "whatever keeps him in a position of power" so completely change with the mood

He's quite keen on spending particularly in big gesture projects, so not particularly conservative in that respect, but also not that keen on a big state so quite conservative in that respect. Doesn't seem to care much about taking away social freedoms etc and is probably actually quite socially liberal (as you can see by the way he throws his spunk around) and he certainly isn't "far right" (he may have surrounded himself with people to the right but purely for his own benefit)

He'll back one thing with gusto and then absolutely reject another similar thing with the same gusto

Ultimately he doesn't really believe in much- his biggest gift is convincing the masses that he does

 

[Hugo Rune]

I'm no supporter of Johnson and his mates; but I refuse to take seriously anything that that ****** Cummings says. What about the
people that he indirectly killed? Apologies are easy when it suits.

Let’s see what Hancock denies today. His initial statement was about how he’s been working very hard. That’s not a denial in any shape or form. The same deflective response from the PM.

This is because both the PM & Hancock need time to get their stories straight. There must have been some truths in Cummings accusations or else they’d both have denied everything he said immediately.

For the PM & Hancock, it’s all about who was in the cabinet room at the time. Those people will be giving evidence to the future inquiry so the truth will come out at some stage as Cummings evidence is either corroborated by others or labelled as untrue. What is certain is that Johnson & Hancock are liars, it’s not about if they get caught, it’s about when.

Delaying the public inquiry almost indefinitely and lying in the short term would seem the obvious tactic from the pair at this stage.

 

[amexer]

Thought it interesting when he spoke about vaccination program he said we and when discussing things that went wrong he said they