OT Cummings Press Statement

[mistaram]

.........he once comported with Satan, he encouraged a hen to steal 6 ears of corn, he encouraged sheep to urinate in the drinking water, send him to Salem for trial or send Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río with an ice pick..............

Yes Swales is right 😊

[Geoff Parkstone]

[AdiSalisbury]

But you see it isnt just about his guilt or otherwise. he has admitted to lockdown breaches, and made excuses, plausible or not.

What it is about is the punishment for those transgressions. Some like you want his head, regardless of the total lack of precedent for that in the entire history of breaches of lockdown. It is entirely appropriate to consider an appropriate punishment in the light of the severity of his actions and when compared to actions taken against others gulity of breaches.

Coventry, Brexit etc are, I agree, not overly relevant, but what is relevant is the fairness of his punishment, and that HAS to be considered in the light of punishments handed out to others equally guilty.This is not a criminal offence, its civil and so has to be reasonable in the circumstances.

So lets just consider what you and a significant portion of the country seem to want - he should be sacked. Now fortunately Adi here is in HR and so he can comment on the unfair dismissal action that would result. He can comment on how the precedent of no other public figure being dismissed for the same offence and so on.

At heart I'm with you, but it is totally unreasonable to single him out. All of them should have been booted at the time the breaches were apparent, but its too late to do a U turn now and reopen all the other cases. As a so called liberal, surely you have to accept the iniquity of treating people differently for similar offences? Sure, he was involved in making the rules, and so should have set a better example to help enforce lockdown, but two months later how does it help NOW to take an action and create a martyr!

Sorry mate I don't care enough to have taken any notice of the tell tales to know the details. Politician is a hypocrite, stop the press?

[Andy_Faber]

So, the press are hounding him because they can and they can try to prove they still have clout in trying to make him lose his job.

Which is why I hope the sillybugger stays in post. His lies were pathetic at a 7/10 level, the press behaviour continues to be 9/10 and rising.

[swaledale]

Sorry mate I don't care enough to have taken any notice of the tell tales to know the details. Politician is a hypocrite, stop the press?

Except Cummings isn't a politician! Also are all politicians hypocrites? They are certainly all human, many I believe are sincere, Johnson is obviously not one of them!

By and large the voters get the politicians and government they deserve, if they had one who told them the truth not many would vote for him or her, thats the way it is!

[swaledale]

How the fleck is it deflection?
If you want a one dimensional argument, say so.
It is obvious you only want to discuss Cummings as the devil here.
Fine, get on with it. It makes you narrow minded and quite frankly exactly what everyone now thinks of Liberalism.
My argument is right and curse you for disagreeing .

No your argument as ever is spurious by introducing complete irrelevancies and red herrings!

Irrespective of what others may or may not have done or said, and lets be clear, theres a degree of discussion to be had about what transgressions you (and your right wing dodgy internet sites have told you happened! in those other cases) this case is clear and there is no requirement for you to cloud the issue in your own unique way.

Cummings went against Government guidance and drove 260 plus miles when he knew, himself or his wife were infected with the virus. Thats indisputable - at the time he did this, the rest of us were instructed by the government to stay at home, and only go out for specific reasons, travel to friend sand family were not amongst those reasons.

Furthermore, if one suspected you were infected with the virus, the instruction was to self isolate for 14 days, not go out at all!

Cummings is the Prime Minister's senior adviser, attends the bloody committee advising government and has clearly and unequivocally disregarded the government strategy.

Now whether that was a breach of the lock down legally is open to question, whats not is that in his position he has a responsibility to be seen to be following the advice and strategy - otherwise as has happened people are going to see that its do as I say not do as I do.

Now I realise this independent view and approach, which basically says, the rues are for the "little people" who are unable to think for themselves not for "superior" beings like Cummings appeals to you, I have some sympathy with that, not being a fan of too much state control and perfectly able to think for myself and not put others at risk, but when your in a position of telling the population what to do, you cannot act like that and should therefore lose your job if you do.

The fact that Johnson has bent over backwards and made himself look weak and foolish for defending Cummings action is just confirmation that he is not someone you'd want leading the country in a crisis.

[MadAmster]

So lets just consider what you and a significant portion of the country seem to want - he should be sacked. Now fortunately Adi here is in HR and so he can comment on the unfair dismissal action that would result. He can comment on how the precedent of no other public figure being dismissed for the same offence and so on.

At heart I'm with you, but it is totally unreasonable to single him out.

Would he have grounds for an unfair dismissal action? He would think so. Gove and Jenrick would be his saving grace. The others were "mere" opposition MPs. G & J are in the Cabinet. Jenrick being Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Gove is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster AND Minister for the Cabinet Office. Those two didn't go. With regard to the 4 Labour MPs and the 2 Tory ones, the worst thing that can happen to them is that they have the whip removed and have their party membership ended. The 2 Tories could lose their cabinet positions. All 6 of them would still be MPs. As GP suggested, that would work in his favour.

The general perception is that Cummings is partly, or even wholly, responsible for creating the lockdown rules. That's a whole new bag of worms. He is definitely the "slogan writer". The government could argue, and IMO win that argument, that having the (joint?) creator of the rules breaking those rules undermines the government, opens up the huge chance that Joe and Joanne Public will think they can do the same and is thus a "crime" reasonably punished by sacking.

[ramAnag]

Well, thank God for that.
Posts 76 & 77 just go to show that common sense and social conscience haven’t been completely abandoned on this forum.

[mistaram]

But you see it isnt just about his guilt or otherwise. he has admitted to lockdown breaches, and made excuses, plausible or not.

What it is about is the punishment for those transgressions. Some like you want his head, regardless of the total lack of precedent for that in the entire history of breaches of lockdown. It is entirely appropriate to consider an appropriate punishment in the light of the severity of his actions and when compared to actions taken against others gulity of breaches.

Coventry, Brexit etc are, I agree, not overly relevant, but what is relevant is the fairness of his punishment, and that HAS to be considered in the light of punishments handed out to others equally guilty.This is not a criminal offence, its civil and so has to be reasonable in the circumstances.

So lets just consider what you and a significant portion of the country seem to want - he should be sacked. Now fortunately Adi here is in HR and so he can comment on the unfair dismissal action that would result. He can comment on how the precedent of no other public figure being dismissed for the same offence and so on.

At heart I'm with you, but it is totally unreasonable to single him out. All of them should have been booted at the time the breaches were apparent, but its too late to do a U turn now and reopen all the other cases. As a so called liberal, surely you have to accept the iniquity of treating people differently for similar offences? Sure, he was involved in making the rules, and so should have set a better example to help enforce lockdown, but two months later how does it help NOW to take an action and create a martyr!

Geoff surely staying over night other than your home address could warrant some punishment That was still the law in 22-5 -2020

[Geoff Parkstone]

The Durham police don't seem to think so