[News] Mr Cummings and the COVID inquiry.

[Leekbrookgull]

Firstly sincere condolences to those who have had their families and friends affected by Covid. Driving around today R5 was on most of the day and i think that it's fair to say that Mr Cummings is no fan of Johnson or Hancock, but don't worry no stone will be left unturned and that lessons have/will be learned and therefore we can all sleep soundly safe in the knowledge that our government of the day is on the case.

 

[AK74]

Ok mate.

 

[Pavilionaire]

What is the point of this enquiry? They say this is about learning lessons, but it is merely a tickbox exercise. All that is being revealed is confirmation that the people at the top are the complete bunch of c*nts we already knew they were.

In 2016 the government carried out Exercise Cygnus - a simulation of a flu outbreak, carried out to war-game the UK’s pandemic readiness. It involved 950 officials from central and local government, NHS organisations, prisons and local emergency response planners. A report on the exercise was compiled the following year and distributed among its participants.

The simulation took place over three days in October 2016 and asked participants to imagine they were fighting a fictitious “worst-case-scenario” flu pandemic affecting up to 50% of the population and causing up to 400,000 excess deaths.

Roll things on 3 years, we still had the same Tory government in power and yet when Covid struck it was as if Cygnus had never happened.

 

[chickens]

What I find so breathtakingly arrogant, is that every source has consistently said that the Conservative Party felt the very same people who have been the backbone of its support for decades were utterly expendable.

My son is a grandparent down directly as a result of this mob, with the deceased’s wife following shortly thereafter, and we will never know how much her bereavement impacted her health/will to fight. Both had been lifelong Conservative voters, though neither had liked Johnson.

I don’t trust Cummings, but the cumulative picture from others is consistent enough to be certain of what most of us already suspected.

The Conservative Party holds the electorate, even those bits of it that vote for them, in utter and total contempt. They should never be allowed to govern again. Voting Conservative is, frankly, a form of Stockholm syndrome.

 

[1066familyman]

Remember the 'protective ring' the Government were putting around care homes?

About as believable as birthday trips to Specsavers.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Cummings is a self-serving pr1ck of the very highest order.

I do hope that his eyesight has improved.

 

[studio150]

At least the claim that Johnson got all the big decisions right, still holds good


Oh

 

[zefarelly]

Cummings is a self-serving pr1ck of the very highest order.

I do hope that his eyesight has improved.

Eye don't

 

[zefarelly]

What I find so breathtakingly arrogant, is that every source has consistently said that the Conservative Party felt the very same people who have been the backbone of its support for decades were utterly expendable.

My son is a grandparent down directly as a result of this mob, with the deceased’s wife following shortly thereafter, and we will never know how much her bereavement impacted her health/will to fight. Both had been lifelong Conservative voters, though neither had liked Johnson.

I don’t trust Cummings, but the cumulative picture from others is consistent enough to be certain of what most of us already suspected.

The Conservative Party holds the electorate, even those bits of it that vote for them, in utter and total contempt. They should never be allowed to govern again. Voting Conservative is, frankly, a form of Stockholm syndrome.

We would have been better off as a nation, if they'd all died and we'd looked after ourselves.

you can roll that back a few years . . . . . Decades even.

 

[chickens]

We would have been better off as a nation, if they'd all died and we'd looked after ourselves.

you can roll that back a few years . . . . . Decades even.

It genuinely feels that way doesn’t it? I have no doubt that some good work was quietly done somewhere by people who weren’t seeking headlines, but it’s patently obvious that this happened despite our political and Civil Service leadership rather than because of it.

If anything this rather reinforces the Sir Humphrey view of the world, that politicians are passing dilettantes in the business of running the country, and that the Civil Service’s job is to keep them miles away from the levers of power.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Cummings is a self-serving pr1ck of the very highest order.

I do hope that his eyesight has improved.

True.

But he is not at the bottom of the barrel.

You’d have to trust his word over anything Johnson says.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

I love Cummings. He has done the equivalent of dousing your house in petrol, setting it on fire, complained it's on fire and suggested that someone else put it out. Anyway,.my favourite bit from today.

 

[zefarelly]

It genuinely feels that way doesn’t it? I have no doubt that some good work was quietly done somewhere by people who weren’t seeking headlines, but it’s patently obvious that this happened despite our political and Civil Service leadership rather than because of it.

If anything this rather reinforces the Sir Humphrey view of the world, that politicians are passing dilettantes in the business of running the country, and that the Civil Service’s job is to keep them miles away from the levers of power.

The problem now , however is that politicians are in it for their own gain, at our expense, so the erosion of civil service works in their favour also. . . . The politicians make good and their mates even better, whilst we plebeians, and the nation as a whole, all suffer.

A far less eloquent variation on the same theme.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

T'was ever thus....

 

[clapham_gull]

I used to work with someone like Cummings. They were educated in jack shit, but felt they were above the subject matter just having an in-built genius to absorb and apply it. Finally positioning themselves as some form of pseudo hyper academic to advise those in power.

Some call them middle-men, I call them f***ing chancers.

 

[Pevenseagull]

In fairness, "fxxkpig and the cxxts" is a solid name for a punk band.

 

[HeaviestTed]

I’m no Boris fan but at least he was voted in - Cummings had so much power but wasn’t elected to clean the bogs.

He is a hateful creature - I imagine he will be back but I hope he isn’t.

Just picturing him in that garden at that desk lying about a trip to Bernard castle, everyone knows it was a lie, self serving arrogant ****.

 

[clapham_gull]

I love Cummings. He has done the equivalent of dousing your house in petrol, setting it on fire, complained it's on fire and suggested that someone else put it out. Anyway,.my favourite bit from today.

How he got anyway near power. Thar's the public sector for you. A combination of anonymous institutionalisation and "reforming" chancers who have the ear of short term leadership.

 

[The Clamp]

I’m no Boris fan but at least he was voted in - Cummings had so much power but wasn’t elected to clean the bogs.

He is a hateful creature - I imagine he will be back but I hope he isn’t.

Just picturing him in that garden at that desk lying about a trip to Bernard castle, everyone knows it was a lie, self serving arrogant ****.

A modern day Rasputin.

 

[clapham_gull]

I’m no Boris fan but at least he was voted in - Cummings had so much power but wasn’t elected to clean the bogs.

He is a hateful creature - I imagine he will be back but I hope he isn’t.

Just picturing him in that garden at that desk lying about a trip to Bernard castle, everyone knows it was a lie, self serving arrogant ****.

I think there is an another back story to that, but due to the utter dysfunctionality we'll never really know.

He was clearly receiving threats at his house, but due to the oddness of Cummings and Boris they cooked up something else.