rA, any post containing the name "Dominic Cummings" and the words "job in hand" van never be far off the markOkay...one last go. The parallel isn’t about the activities themselves...it is about the impact those activities have on the relevant professions or agencies.
Every time a priest, or teacher or social worker is suspected of ‘kiddie fiddling’, as you put it, the job becomes that much harder for the vast majority in that profession.
Likewise, I can’t remember his name, but the football coach who had been abusing youngsters throughout his career would have had the same impact on whether parents would be quite so keen on happily sending their kids off to what, hitherto, had seemed an utterly innocent and healthy activity.
‘Bent’ or vindictive coppers will make the population more suspicious of the decent majority...imagine trying to police the black population of Minnesota now, and I’m sure every case of, for example, Munchausen by proxy that comes to light has a devastating impact on the trust shown in the nursing/caring professions.
So it is in the world of politics. People are already mistrustful of politicians for a variety of reasons...Blair lying over Iraq, the expenses scandal, Johnson’s habitual ‘economy with the truth’...to take just three examples.
Now, on top of that we have Cummings apparent disregard for the rules he himself had framed and a web of, imo, deceit in terms of his explanations which any half alert press would have exposed last Monday afternoon.
So...and please don’t continue to try and deflect from the issue by saying that I am comparing Cummings to a ‘kiddie fiddler’ again...the point is that Cummings has brought enormous discredit to the Government and Prime Minister he is paid to support.
He has, by placing himself above the rules he devised, altered the public mood and distracted Government from the job in hand.
In short, and this is really the only point that matters...Dominic Cummings is extremely well paid for advice which should help and support the PM and his Government, but his recent actions and subsequent bizarre explanations have done the precise opposite.
They have, imo, led to national outrage at a time when there should be a spirit of unity, they have led to deep feelings of mistrust and ridicule towards the government when it is crucial that the public are ‘onside’ and they have ultimately made the job of governing and policing the population infinitely harder.
With that last paragraph in mind, and bearing in mind that this has now dragged on for a week, I cannot see how it is either possible or desirable for him to remain in post.