Boris Johnson's closest political adviser, Dominic Cummings, has been in and around the upper reaches of government and the Conservative Party for nearly two decades.
But today, the PBC has decided he must go and have been falling over themselves to generate innuendo:
The Prime Minister is standing by his man
Boris is giving Dominic his full-throated support.
Our Gnasher has weighed in to support the PBC, giving Boris a good blogging:
Speaking to the Scottish PBC today, she told him very firmly, I needed my Catherine,
and did my best to support her decision to travel to her holiday home during the lockdown, but when it was clear that there were votes in it, I threw her to the wolves, without a second's hesitation.
You wanna stay in office, Boris, do it. Off with his head. Show some leadership, man. The voters willna take it.
Prof
Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling helped shape
Britain’s coronavirus lockdown strategy, has quit as a government
adviser after flouting the rules by receiving visits from his lover at
his home. He said he made
an
“error of judgment”. Too right. No doubt he'll be back.Meanwhile, up North, local newspapers the Inverness Courier, the Press and Journal and the Orcadian have been making a fuss about this gentleman,
Iain Stewart, NHS Orkney’s new chief executive.
He has been commuting between his Orkney accommodation to his Inverness home every weekend, to see his family, a journey involving a sea crossing and 120 road miles, whilst encouraging the island population, to whom the borders have been closed for two months, to avoid nonessential travel. He told The Orcadian last Monday that he is still travelling to his home on the Scottish mainland when he can. The Scottish Government has supported his decision to commute to his home in the Highlands, during the coronavirus lockdown. So there's hope yet for young Dominic.
Here's a paragraph from mr ishmael:
Gender doesn't colour my loathing of politicians, you have to treat them all equally, they are all filth; thieves, fraudsters, blackmailers, drug addicts, murderers, rapists, extortionists, embezzlers, money launderers, war criminals and child rapists; slags, pimps and sluts, shit-eating degenerates, all of them, repeatedly criminal either in commission of the acts or by default in not reporting them in others;
gender is irrelevant.
But that's just me, one of God's liberals.
(from Honours Amonst Thieves posted 7th August 2016)
32 comments:
The BBC was wetting itself yesterday - like a prissy schoolchild excitedly obsessing about morals after spotting the headmaster having a crafty fag in the woods. The presenter (this was 5-Live) even asked one tame Voice Of Outrage what was likely to happen "when there are further allegations." I imagine she meant to say "if", but she didn't correct herself. Good grief, you'd think the elite hasn't always done as it liked. Taking the biscuit was Alistair Campbell, who said he felt "ashamed to be British" when he heard the PM's press conference. The government, he added, is "responsible for thousands of deaths." Did the BBC ninny remark that in that case they'd have to up their game considerably to get close to the toll he has on his own record, dodgy dossier & middle east abattoir and all that? Did she fuck. China, Brexit, the economy - much more important, surely? Bah, whatevah, right?
And they were at it again this morning. The Durham Crime Commissioner, so excited he could barely construct a coherent sentence (though I got the impression that may well be his default setting), has asked the Chief Constable to establish whether the virus should now be renamed Cummings Disease, with all North East mortality attributable to this terrible cunt, or words to that effect. BBC5 ninny, also wetting herself, asked "Do you think Cummings has committed an offence?" Don't know, came the answer. "Yes, but do you think he might have done?" FFS. I'm sure it couldn't happen to a nicer chap, and all that, but it's a Brexit-payback assassination-attempt, isn't it? And with not moving swiftly ahead with Brexit likely to leave us on the hook for a vast EU bail-out contribution, on a fuck-you-pay-me-and-bend-over-while-you're-at-it basis, you have to wonder about the bigger picture. Smoke & mirrors, my old friends, etc.
cheers
v./
Smoke and mirrors indeed. Whilst the navel gazers wonder at the stinky wool emanating from their own sordid bellies! The tench from the modern media defies any such foul and reeking stuff throughout history.
And you have to wonder, Mr OR, about the psychological smoke-and-mirrors construction in Campbell's psyche that enabled him to pontificate like that yesterday without imploding from cognitive dissonance. Maybe he was trying to channel Chaucer's Pardoner - "for though myself be a ful vicious man, a moral tale yet I yow telle kan". But I don't think it worked.
v./
Yes, Campbell and Blair leave you breathless, Mr Verge. I'm expecting Major anytime now, lamenting the sore decline of the party he once knew and loved.
Mr BB - when I saw the phrase "sore decline" in the same sentence as John Major I was expecting a sharp crack about Edwina Currie, so thank you for showing such tremendous restraint.
And I know I should know better than to mention foopball on a civilized blog like this but Dominic Cummings looks to me a bit like Dennis Wise in a certain light. Wonder if they've ever shared a taxi.
v./
Good spot, Mr Verge. Though I'm sure Dennis would have done the honourable thing. Being a spiritual man, I do not enter into sharp cracks.
Very...er, wise, Mr BB. (Most solonic?)
v./
Well, tour de force, or what? Having analysed the performances of Catherine and Neil, Cummings has clearly decided that regret, apologies and public penance is not the way to keep your job. So, I've done nothing wrong, je ne regrette rien, perfectly reasonable thing for a family man to drive hundreds of miles to stay on my dad's estate and I was just testing my eyesight on the 60 mile round side trip to a beauty spot. Didn't talk to Boris cos he was poorly. And Boris started out by stoutly defending Cummings, and telling the nation that his own eyesight has suffered as a result of his Corvid 19 (remember I'm a hero!) but started to flag a little as the relentless questioning went on. Well, Robert Peston, these are very good questions and you've had the chance to ask them before, Well Laura, and Beth and Sam, you've heard a substantial chunk of autobiography from Dominic and you must make your own minds up now. No, I won't unreservedly defend him and I can live in Downing Street without him. And here's some bread and circuses to shut the fuck up - car salesrooms, open air markets - get out there and spend to save the eckonomy.
So, ishmaelites, any bets on the outcome? I think it could go either way, still.
mr verge and mr bungalow bill, I suspect you boys are talking dirty again. At the very least, talking football.
And as for Malcolm Tucker, what's he up to?
Playing distance kissy-face with Uncle Keir, probably.
Dennis Wise used to entertain his team-mates by reciting Shakespeare on the coach, Mrs Ish. Renaissance pond, innit...into thin air, etc.
v./
Cummings did the right thing Mrs I, never apologise to the media scum no matter what he’s allegedly done.
Did you see that Beff Rigby, lipstick on a pig just doesn’t do her justice. The questioning was appalling, asking Cummings to repeat what he explained in great detail for a half hour.
I can’t see opening a few non-essential shops is going to save the economy, there’s going to be a big re-set, or the many are going to pay an awful price.
If I may, could we have more of your own posts mingled in with mr I’s ? I rather enjoyed that, thank you.
Why, thank you, mr inmate, how very kind. I kinda see myself as the custodian of the great man's work, and I certainly lack the political understanding and elephantine memory of mr ishmael. You'll hear from me occasionally, when I'm particularly outraged.
And, make no mistake about it, the many are going to pay an awful price. And part of that price is the collapse of Opposition. Happened already - look at the way the Coronacrisis legislation whizzed through the House unopposed. mr ishmael's Government of National Unity is lurking just around the corner. Probl'y be midwived in by Malcolm Tucker if mr verge is correct in his hunch about Sir Keir.
I think the whole thing with Cummings is a measure of our national fuckwittery. We're stuffed, I fear, though we've always known that on here.
I second Mr Inmate's conclusion.
I haven't been a Cummings fan to date, but have just listened to his press conference. He was very impressive IMHO. Assuming he was telling the truth, what he did was reasonable and understandable. The press questioners were hopeless. I'm impressed he dealt with them showing no temper. This is nothing more than another personal attack because of BREXIT.
"Never apologise, never explain" Well, he did the first bit, but failed abysmally the second part of the exhortation. He explained so much that now the pack want to know why social services have not been consulted about the negligence of a father with failing eyesight who took his 4 year old on a 60 mile drive to determine if he could see well enough to drive.
I'm surprised that no-one here has commented on the conduct of Iain Stewart, who, most weekends, managed to persuade a ferry company instructed not to allow non-essential passage (instructions issued by himself)to allow him to board in order to drive to Inverness and then to return two days later. A repeat offender, on the face of it.
Thanks, mr bungalow bill. That's kind.
If you just listened to the press conference, mr. mike, you would not have seen the other details that went into a thoroughly persuasive and reasonable performance. The dreamy, green setting in the Downing Street Rose Garden. The perfect, casual white linen shirt, open at the neck. He usually looks like the weird guy you cross the road to avoid, in his beanie hat pulled low. Not today. A fair bit of impression management went into today's performance. And you'd expect the guy to be good at it, wouldn't you? Given his job?
I'm sure you are quite right about the backlash for his part in the Brexit Wars. And I'm also sure that there are some angry and frustrated people who have been confined in cramped accommodation, complying with the emergency measures to slow down the spread of a feared illness, who deeply resent the freedom of movement this man gave himself. It's all fuel to the class wars.
Ah yes the Brexit wars, that is not over by a long way, I fear that ‘we’ may have to return to the bloc in some small way so as to show solidarity, and for our own safety, when Orange man Bad and the little yellow bastards start to really fall out.
True it is not about Left and Right or ‘liberal’ anymore, not since the great terror began in 1997, it is rich v poor, haves v have nots, I know fuckin’ besters, as mr Ishmael told us many times, v we less educated. They, the political class have not a fag paper between them. GNU it’s the future.
Mrs I: I watched a video of the whole thing, helpfully posted on the Filthograph. Yes, of course it was stage managed, and he was obviously advised not to behave like Rasputin.
Having said that, his opening remarks were extremely well crafted. No doubt there was legal input and group testing beforehand, but still there are many cases of ministerial and even prime ministerial statements that would not hold a candle to his remarks. Also he handled the questions well, sticking to the point and no temper. The only question even verging on a gotcha was when he was asked if he filled up with petrol on the way back. That caught him off balance.
Looking at the post match press comments they seem to fall neatly into two groups: those who were for and against BREXIT.
Overall, my conclusion is that the optics for the man in the street are not good, particularly following the medical lady in Scotland. But in his case, unlike the lady, his didn't actually break the rules and what he did was reasonable given the circumstances.
BTW I read an interesting piece a few moments ago that where he took his 60 mile side trip to test his eyesight is the home to AstraZeneca who just took 1.5 billion from the US to manufacture vaccine.
Correction: GlaxoSmithKline not AstraZeneca.
We'll see if the resignation of Douglas Ross starts the collapse of this House of cards. Douglas Gordon Ross (born 27 January 1983) is a Scottish Conservative Party politician who has been the MP for Moray since June 2017. He was previously a Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Highlands and Islands region. He served as Under Secretary of State for Scotland from December 2019 until his resignation in May 2020, citing his inability to endorse the Downing Street line on supporting Cummings. The Conservatives have been hammered in Scotland by the SNP, and retained only 6 seats in the last election.
In a sense, mr mike, it is not importantwhether or not Cummings acted within a strict interpretation of the lockdown rules. Just as it is not important whether or not this damn virus was manufactured in a military viral laboratory in Wuhan or naturally mutated amongst bats and hopped the species barrier into humans. It is the consequences that matter. President Donald must be prevented from launching global thermo-nuclear war. That's what matters.
And in Cummingsgate, it is what is believed that matters. The Rose Garden statement was impression-managed to gain sympathy for the chap. His focus on his concern for his child's welfare was calculated by his script writers as being a winner with the public - "gosh, we are all parents, we can all understand his dilemma and admire his bravery in caring for his family" - but it didn't work. The child was looked after by his mum and dad in London, on the journey north, and in Durham. He could have been looked after by them had they stayed in London, as everyone else had to do. The flight north is being seen as reckless endangerment, potentially dragging the London plague across the length of England, to the peril of those areas to have escaped the devastation that the illness has wreaked in London. And it is resented by folk who probably will be radicalised in consequence. Gosh, they may even start voting!
The coronacrisis legislation has put coercive tools into the service of the armed forces, the police and the criminal justice system; but, as ever, people have to be complicit in their subjugation. They have to agree to do as they are told - for they are many and the rulers are few. Ask the French. When Paris was rebuilt after the revolution, the capital's boulevards were built wide and straight to provide optimum sight lines for firing on the rebellious people. But they still have trouble, don't they, because the French are that bit less biddable than the British and they have even more disrespect for their rulers than do we.
For our government to maintain power, and be able to control the speed and direction of the virus spread through the population, the people have to agree to comply with protective measures. For this, the message has to be simple, honest and transparent. No room for hypocrisy or any suspicion that those that rule o'er us are not doing this for our own good because they know best, but because, as usual, they are pissing in our faces.
Ain't that the truth, mr inmate. Government of National Unity. Not a fag paper between them - just differently-coloured ties. And who will get the top job, and take us triumphantly back into Europe, FFS? Gnasher. Scotland is stirring. If Gnasher would just drop this independent Scotland bollocks, she could be a very credible leader - makes Boris look like a bumbling buffoon (not hard to do, granted, when you contrast their performances in their daily briefings. Boris's bumbling schtik wears a bit thin, whereas Gnasher remains serious, thoughtful, compassionate for the fallen, delivering a consistent message. And she read the runes the right way, sacked the Calderwood liability and didn't catch Corvid 19.
Personally,I do not care for the Cummings oik but it is clearly afour-eek delayed political hit. He, 'tis rumoured, took down the rumoured Brexit delay that was cobbled together while both he and Bojo were moiling in their pits. The Remoaners would have been wetting themselves like toddlers at Legoland at the prospect of escaping at the last minute. A terible disappointment, I am sure.
As for a 60-mile eyesight test in a motor car... Words fail me, not for the first time. But of course, that's what he did. He was in the middle of nowhere, bored out of his skull, harassed by a four-year-old. Surely the worst age for a kid in lockdown; the McCanns would have to call for buckets of Calpol - perhapos get their PR man to deliver it. So he went to Durhamshire so that the kid would be near teenage relatives. I'll let that pass. But then they all took a wee side trip to the country. And that was the real sin, the one that cannot be explained away. Without eye testing behind the wheel of a two-ton Landy. There is more to it too or one of them would have skewered him on that. It was a gentle grilling to damage not an assassination.
The slugs have eaten all my runner beans, mrs i. I am going to launch shock and awe this afternoon.
Oh, mr mongoose, a catastrophe. You may well launch shock and awe, but - too late - the buggers have had the beans and all that remains is dross. Happened to me once - beautiful little plants, raised on sunshine and water and air in the conservatory, soft, gentle things, transplanted in the late spring into lovingly prepared loam beds, next day eaten down unto little green spikes sticking out of the earth. mongoose, my very dear, they won't recover. Launch slugicide all you like, you'll have to buy in some more plants, surround them with broken eggshells, ashes from your hearth, coffee grounds from your George Clooney machine, orange peel - but they've got the taste now. Little bean addicts, they will slime their way into your bean bed whilst you are sleeping, and the late May night will be rent by green screams as the slugs carouse and orgify on your replacement green beans. Or you could stay up late, late, not leaning on the window sill, equipped with a torch and a patio knife ( neat piece of kit, that,)transfix the horned ones with a blast of light, then cut them in half with the patio knife. Bit nasty, all that, and you don't get your beauty sleep. Or, you could half-bury jam-jars filled with beer at strategic points around your beans, because, as we all know - any fule no, slugs have a serious beer habit and tumble and drown into the morrison's cut price lager. Which leaves you with the disposal problem. Me? I chuck them over the wall when no-one's looking.Or I think they're not looking. But they do have binoculars.
For all these reasons, I wasna goin' to bother with the vegetables this year. Take that, Monty! But then along came the coronacrisis and I got all survivalist.
My tatties and onion sets are doing just fine - but they're already half-grown when you put them in. The rhubarb is rhubarbing for Scotland, as it always does.I did give them a bit of a compost mulch in April, and it was much appreciated.The blackcurrants, gooseberries, blackberries and raspberries are greening up and filling up nicely. The wild garlic is over, but the real, hard-neck garlic is getting dead impressive, say I so myself. However (never start a sentence with however, it isna grammar, mr ishmael always chided), the carrots and runner beans are sulking. When they do heave themselves out of the ground, I have little hope for them, as a rabbit hopped past my conservatory window this morning. Speaking of the conservatory, my strawberries are gorgeous - red and soft and warm and scented - already eating them - and the tomatoes are skyscraping up their supports and yellowly flowering away like Billy-oh.
And, back at you, mr mongoose, to your substantive political point. Yes, the pro- Europeans are hugging themselves with delight at the great gift handed to them by Cummings - namely, himself, and doing their damndest to achieve his resignation/dismissal. Boris is clutching Cummings hard to his bosom, as he owes his current position entirely to the man, and is unsure that he can function at all without his puppet master. Conservatives? Rats in a sack, same old, same old. The PBC are stirring the mix, primarily, of course, to stick it in their faces, give them what they want; in order to achieve their desired viewing figures, but also because there's a little left wing bias there, as ever - not much, just a tad. And Douglas Ross - is he an innocent, sainted angel, driven by his presbyterian moral values, or has he something else up his sleeve? Me, I'm a catholic, embracing life.
Fun as it is to observe the writhings of Westminster, it is the rich wot gets the pleasure and the poor wot gets the blame, again and again and again, until, possibly, perhaps, impossibly, the poor decide that enough is definitely more than enough. They didn't build the fine, straight, wide, boulevards here, so maybe there's half a chance. Nah, a bit of clapping and rainbowing and everything will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
I may be proven wrong, but I have the feeling Cummings is a tough nut to crack. I'm starting to warm to him. If its a choice between the bishops and the foaming Tory MPs and the press, or Cummings - well that's no real choice for me. If he's upsetting the bastards then he's doing his job.
Yes, just wee green stalks a-poking their chewed ends silently from the barren now earth.
Mrs m has already sourced replacements from her green mafia but I figure we're done for on that front. I have copper strand, eggshells and ash but still the blighters march on. My carrots aren't up either - or just maybe one is trying.
The fruit trees though are booming like mad things. Even the rescue bastard - which normally gives us two or three meagre, little, bitter buggers - looks like it's going to deliver twenty or more, and seems to have properly established itself and will thrive.
I think that he'll tough it out too, Mr Mike. He handled the press conference - what bits I've seen - pretty smoothly for the most part, and I am pretty sure that Auntie will have selected the most unbecoming bits. So that is a story in itself.
Young Jock McConscience, mrs i, was a nobody, and now isn't even that. He is a political vacuum all by his ownself. He's negative energy, a spectre, roaming a parallel universe wherein the phone never rings and nobody gives a monkey's what your twitter twatter says. It's going to be at least a decade of Tory snouts in the trough but not for him. He has made himself the pariah that nobody will sit next to at lunchtime.
mr mike, I'm with you on that - he's not from the usual mould, young Cummings - but his political survival rests entirely in Boris' hands, and Boris is not an honourable man, I fear - like all politicians, he will do what must be done to retain his grip on the levers of power. We will see what transpires. Things are moving quickly, down there, in Lunnon town.
Dunno, mr mongoose, young Dougie certainly bid for the stardom with his conscience-resignation letter - wonder where we'll see him next?
My fruit trees are doing their best, but I do live in the north of the north, with only the Gulf Stream to keep us from glaciation, so the fact that they set blossom is a miracle. I don't expect anything else.
Boris is a history book man, a scholar of a certain show-off kind, but definitely not stupid. He has his eyes on his chapters. Ch 1: Brexit Referendum. Ch 2: The Phony Brexit War. Ch 3: Landslide! The Red Wall falls. Ch 4: Covid Crisis. Ch 5... What will Chapter 5 say? And Chapter 12?
He'll have set his heart on a decade and, though he may get bored before then, I would not bet against it. Labour are prostrate before him. Starmer is so tedious that the flies will settle on him as his forensic this and his astute that drive the colour from our cheeks but he hasn't the firepower to fight back, and he has not the battalions. So boundary changes to drive the stake into Labour, and a proper Brexit to make even the most rabid, blue-arsed McPatriot think twice before they decide to be a cold, wet rock to the NW of Europe now shorn of every economic advantage save whisky, shortbread and tartan trews. The Tory party too are now nailed to the ,mast of their leader. The first to step out of line should be tarred, feathered and thrown to the wolves of the dying MSM. I'd do Steve Baker now. That would scare the living bejasus out of every UK politician with a pot to piss in. But then I am not a nice, clubbable person and thus am probably unsuited to the pursuit of high office.
And so now what does Boris do? What is the key to the future for the now Tory True Blue UK? Brexit makes anything possible. Build an ocean of fishing boats? Or more likely buy for tuppence those idle beauties from the soon-to-be-bankrupt French fishing fleet. Move the workforce of government from London to the Red Wall cities? Starve the old enemy and feed the new friend. Take on the ruin which is education? He can do anything. Much as Blair could have. (Oops!)
We shall see. But in the scheme of things Cummings is a muddled cipher, a multi-lingual signpost at the crossroads at which we now stand.
Mr mongoose: I agree that Boris has it all at his feet, but will get bored. He's not a details kinda person. Which is where Cummings comes in (geddit?). Also, I don't accept that Boris will just ditch Cummings for electoral gain: first, he doesn't need any more gain, he's secure; second, Cummings helped him win the election and ensure BREXIT; and third, I have a suspicion that Boris could well be loyal to those who are with him (I know that's a long shot with politicians, but I don't see Boris as being of the Blair mould, for example).
All Boris has to do is hold firm on BREXIT and No10 is his for as long as he wants it. This Cummings stuff is a confection from the BREXIT haters.
You're spot on there, Mr Mike. Politically he needs to do nothing. He should do some things.
It would be prudent to be proactive re party discipline. Brexit must be delivered properly - which is why they are after Cummings. It is transparent. Everybody knows it. Therefore the sacrifice must not be delivered. The EU is burning down as we watch. It may not survive even to year's end as an effective political force.
I would also move Sedwill to Stoke-on-Trent.
Agreed Mr mongoose. In the immortal words of Francis Urquhart: "time to put a little stick around". Also agreed the EU is on its last legs. The southern nations are stuffed, but Germany/Holland/Austria etc refuse to budge on Coronabonds. The ECB threatens to do its own thing and even sue Germany. The snake is eating itself. Very important for Boris to ensure the UK is not on the hook for any of that shit, instead of wasting his time.
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