...... To save Boris's arse !!! PM aide Cummings damaged public confidence in UK COVID-19 response - study Reuters Aug 7th 2020 3:32AM LONDON (Reuters) - Dominic Cummings, a top aide to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, damaged public confidence in the government's coronavirus response by travelling out of London when the city was in lockdown, an academic study published on Thursday said. Cummings was at the centre of a huge public outcry among locked-down Britons when it was revealed he had travelled 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of London to be closer to family for childcare reasons after his wife fell ill. He denied breaking the rules, was backed by Johnson, and resisted pressure to quit. The incident caused a clear decrease of public confidence in the government's ability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, which started from the day the story broke and has not recovered since, a study by University College London (UCL) found. "These data illustrate the negative and lasting consequences that political decisions can have for public trust and the risks to behaviours," lead author of the study, Daisy Fancourt said. The researchers said they had separated out the effect of the Cummings row on confidence in the British government by comparing data from a large scale survey, with data from the same source on confidence in devolved governments in Scotland and Wales, and in the health service. Confidence in England dropped by 0.4 points on a seven point scale between May 21 and 25, while there was no corresponding drop on the other indicators. The study looked at 220,000 results from more than 40,000 individuals between April 24 and June 11. The findings have not been externally peer-reviewed ahead of their publication, UCL said.
Agree, personally I would dearly love to know what he has on Johnson as he didn't sack him, it seems more like Cummins is running the country not Johnson! As well as breaking the spirit of the lockdown, as did certain others, Gordon Ramsey being another, Cummins also broke Traffic Law, in so far as his reason for driving to Barnard Castle was allegedly because he wanted to test his eyesight! Now as people may or may not be aware it is an offence under the road traffic act to drive a motor vehicle with uncorrected defective eyesight, be it permenantly or temporary. He admitted suffering from blurred vision and this was his excuse for travelling to Barnard Castle, to test his eyesight, now this doesn't hold up on several fronts, 1, if he had doubts about his eyesight he should have sought medical advice, not just gone for a drive, 2, why did he take his kids with him knowing he could potentially have been involved in an accident, due to his alleged visual problems! Finally point number 3, it is a lot farther from where he was to London than it was to Barnard Castle, so potentially he could have got halfway back to London and had problems with his vision. He also stated that he made no stops on the journey up to the North East from London, well that was a miracle, now ok he could have had food and drinks in the car for his kids, but what about toilet breaks? I doubt I could make that run myself without needing a toilet stop at least once, and we know kids have less control, so that was clearly a lie, unless of course they relieved themselves in the back of the car, which I doubt! Let us suppose he'd been involved in a car accident, imagine he'd pulled out of a junction and collided with another vehicle, or worst still a cyclist, imagine how that would look in court, 'so Mr Cummins, can you please explain to the court exactly why you were driving at the time of the collision?' 'well your honour, I was suffering from blurred vision and wanted to see if I would be able to drive back to London, I was sat at the junction and unfortunately, due to my vision problem I pulled out without seeing the cyclist, the first time I was aware of his presence was as he flew over the bonnet of my car" Then in the case of an accident his insurance company would have been well withing their rights to declare his insurance void, due to his driving with impaired vision! Clearly this was either a complete fabrication on his part, or he was displaying a worrying degree of arrogance by doing what he did. There has been far too much of this kind of behaviour, Boris shaking hands, Boris allowing the major horse race to go ahead, so as not to disappoint his 'posh' friends, it clearly displayed an 'us and them' attitude. Likewise his ending up with Covid and ending up in intensive care was in my opinion a put up job purely in an attempt to garner public sympathy and thereby detract from his previous actions. I don't know how much experience other readers have had with hospital intensive care units, but, having been in a number of them, I can honestly state that I have never ever seen a patient sat up in bed reading and joking with the doctors and nurses, in fact most of the patients are normally unconscious due to their injury, or have been placed in a medically induced coma! This whole thing has been, and still is being handled badly and we need someone at the top who'll be consistent, open, and above all honest with the British public.
When Boris Johnson got elected as prime minister I thought about time someone who has the backbone to do some good for this country gets elected, now I think he is just a two faced liar who is only out to line his own and his cohorts pockets and boost his own ego.
I never had, nor have the confidence in him as a leader to whom people could identify as a leader who one could be relied upon to motivate inspiration
An idiot and an instrument of dangerous intent - so is indeed is a suitable - although not encouraging, nor desired - match
