You said there’s a lot wrong with what I said but have not made a single valid point of substance that contradicts what I said. Until then there’s not much point continuing the conversation.
Westminster Politics
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Make the Caf Great Again.
In terms of how Starmer/Labour can do better, first of all as an opposition party they have to accept that they can win only by playIng by the existing rules of the game. They can moan all they like about the bias media (particularly the big newspapers) but they can’t change that fact - all they can do is offer less of an obvious target than was presented by Corbyn and cranks like Milne.
Related to the first point, they need to kill any suggestion or perception that the Labour party is lacking in patriotic feeling. The Tories have known how to exploit working class patriotism since Disraeli. Labour need to fight back hard on this point and, in this age of populism, it is more important than ever. Invoke the spirit of Ernest Bevin about having a bomb with a bloody big union jack on the side. It may cause some of their metropolitan voters to hold their nose occasionally but, with the Remain cause lost, it no longer involves squaring a circle.
By taking account of the above (and I believe Starmer and his team can avoid those obvious pitfalls), I believe they can win votes by campaigning on a properly planned and costed left wing position. The Tory press would still attack Starmer as an Islington luvvie Marxist but the attacks would carry less bite without the Corbyn baggage and provided policy is sensibly developed rather than thrown out on the hoof during an election campaign.
Having said all that, the ceiling in 2024 or 2029 is a coalition government. With Scotland lost to the SNP, I can’t see Labour winning a majority in England and Wales.
Before the advent of the 24/7 news cycle that is exactly what happened, it was pure news, no commentary/opinion-pieces by people who weren't there. Personally I just want the news, not somebodies opinion, I can form my own!
Both should still be impartial. Newsnight was always different in that in went into more detail than could be given in the News headlines, but it was still impartial in the way it was presented, we never heard a presenter giving their personal opinion, or implying if someone was telling the truth or lying.
Even the news headlines sometimes give a slant which shouldn't be there. Now I'm retired I can watch the lunchtime, evening and late night news and quite often in lead stories there has been some editing to try to make it appear more balanced, but not with Newsnight which is now just a show case for the presenters.
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This poll gives a hung parliament (323 seats) and this is just before the Dominic Cummings scandal.
I remember polling figures like that getting the "Any other leader would be 20 points ahead." treatment. How times change.
How very interesting.
It is quite important that those of us who were and still are appalled by both Cummings unacceptable actions and Boris Johnson for the despicable way he handled the whole thing don't just forget about it.
Johnson is probably delighted that believes he and Cummings got away with it.
But we must have long memories.
Well let's see how fickle the public really are.
Depends how you define 'got away with it'. I cant see how Cummings retains the psychological authority he used on MPs and civil servants to implement his agenda. His power is surely diminished and so many very powerful people are now also out to get him.
'Let them eat sport.'
He's pissed off a lot of people on the way up, he should expect a bit of a kicking on his way back down.
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But but Corbyn.
Oh my god, I thought this was just a SteveJ joke. He actually said that. These people are so bad at pretending to be human.
Yea i get you about impartiality when reporting.
But then take piers Morgan, he opines on everything and is never impartial.
How come some journalists have to be impartial and others dont? Is there different roles witin journalism or how does it work? Where does the line be drawn?
Ive never passed any remarks on any of this until you highlighted it for me and I found myself agreeing with you.
Hopefully you are correct. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward.
I am not optimistic though because of the massive efforts Boris went to to keep him.
I could do without seeing these polls for another 4 years
The price of such a coalitiin is presumably an independence referendum?
Going to make subsequent elections even harder if Scotland votes leave given the likely difficulties in the details such as UK debt, North Sea oil, boarder controls, currency etc
I think a confidence and supply deal would be better for labour so they don't have to back a referendum
Does this breaking story about Cummings have potentially serious consequences for his career as the PM's adviser, or not?
Like it or not, the BBC is supposed to remain impartial, at the very least in their news broadcasts and news shows.
Piers Morgan can opine as much as he wants in the mail or ITV, just as O'Brien and Farage can opine as much as they want on LBC. It isn't the same situation.
The issue of course generally with impartiality is that it is very difficult to define and peoples' views on what is impartial is going to be based on their own biases. For the most part, someone who voted labour, SNP, tory, lib dems, greens are all going to have totally different views on what is impartial and what isn't.
The thing is, having watched her segment, I completely and utterly agree with every word. If it was me, I would have been even more scathing, on a wider range of topics, regarding a response that has been world beating its incompetence from the start.
Trying to be objective though, opinion does come into her segment, it isn't all fact. To me and you, it goes without saying. To others on the political spectrum, it isnt.
The problem of course is that our political discourse has reached the point where even facts can be and are disputed.
You make a good point and I won’t pretend to have all the answers. Certainly more clarification on opinion pieces vs “real” journalism would be a start.
@africanspur Arnies post was in the context of a discussion we were having yesterday about the objectivity of news headlines. I brought up the Newsnight incident as an example of what can happen when a seemingly reasonable and commonly accepted viewpoint can still be open to criticism, if it deviates from purely the established facts.
I was surprised at how blunt Maitlis's intro was. But some presenters are given licence to be so blunt, and others aren't. I mean, as an example away from politics, the BBC's John Humphreys regularly and publicly criticised his employers for years yet he still kept his job. It seems that some frank opinions are allowed but not certain others; how curious.
Isn't newsnight supposed to be a "magazine" type show? They regularly display opinions as it is not the 10pm news.
Also I recall the background picture on newsnight of Corbyn with a russian hat photoshopped in front of a red Russian background on Newsnight. No repercussions then. Essentially they don't have to be neutral, they just cannot criticise the government. That is dangerous.
Looking at approval and best PM ratings is still worth looking at.
It is. And not only that, I could have sworn Paxman forcefully and continously aired his opinions. Sexism anyone?
This is how I view Newsnight. When I was watching the episode in question, it didn't even occur to me that what Maitlis was saying would prove contentious.
Had This Week still been on air, they would of treated the Cummings story with the derision it deserves.
I've heard (from relatively reputable sources as I live near there) that Cummings actually partially owns the property, so he could potentially be personally liable, as opposed to his parents being liable which I think would be shrugged off quite easily.
Having said that, I don't think there's much that could have consequences for Dominic Cummings whilst Boris Johnson is Prime Minister and the government keeps giving contracts to companies run by members of his family.
Edit - just actually read the piece and realised it mentions he part owns it.
I'm not sure 6,000 new homes within 12 months is going to come quick enough for the rough sleeping community sadly. I've seen some great work in my city and the lives of some rough sleepers turned around for the better during the pandemic basically because they have solid housing and services on their door step. This has helped break the cycle of drug abuse and offered them a way out of that lifestyle for the first time in years. How we manage this from now is crucial as those individuals need to smoothly transition into their own accomodation to have a chance. If they are forced into sheltered accomodation or back on to the streets for a period then it all falls apart.
“Cummings refused to comment and banned anyone else from commenting,” said one source. “His attitude was that this was a non-story, it’s left-wing papers and they can go f*** themselves. It was a five-day lesson in crisis mismanagement.”
Rumours circulated that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, had punched Cummings.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ummings-and-boris-johnson-show-over-9qgxxdlvz
Rumours circulated that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, had punched Cummings.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ummings-and-boris-johnson-show-over-9qgxxdlvz
They are tied together, but is the Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson show over?
Tim Shipman, Political Editor
11-14 minutes https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ummings-and-boris-johnson-show-over-9qgxxdlvz
There was a fleeting moment last week when Boris Johnson’s team felt as if it had time-travelled to Theresa May’s government — when a prime minister’s every action set leadership rivals plotting. As Johnson’s support for his senior aide Dominic Cummings — who had fled London during lockdown with his wife and child — caused the prime minister’s standing to plummet in the polls, word reached the whips that Jeremy Hunt, who lost the contest for Conservative leader last July, was phoning MPs.
“Hunt was calling around backbenchers asking what they thought,” a Tory adviser said. “He was saying, ‘I’m considering what I’m going to say.’ The perception from backbenchers was that this had leadership connotations. Hunt and others were using this to get in with people.”
Hunt says he is “done with” such ambitions, only spoke to members of the health select committee he chairs and points out that he publicly said Cummings should not resign.
In a WhatsApp message to her Blue Collar Conservatism group, the former cabinet minister Esther McVey — another leadership hopeful last year — was also counselling opinion. “I’m anxious to hear (in private) what people think about the Dominic Cummings situation and whether or not he needs to resign to protect the PM and the party,” she wrote, adding: “I would appreciate people not reply on here as it may leak.” In the time-honoured tradition, it then did so.
This weekend Johnson’s team is wondering not whether Cummings is going, but what the effects of his staying will be.
The affair was revealing: of the way Johnson’s top team does its business — with an unbridled aggression that can be self-defeating — and the reliance a highly centralised administration has on Cummings himself.
It also flushed out the degree to which a below-par Johnson is still leaning on others after his personal brush with the coronavirus. Yet the episode concealed just as much. The conventional wisdom has it that Johnson did not recognise what his aide had done wrong, was unconcerned by his behaviour and did not realise the depth of public disquiet about his support for Cummings.
Conversations with more than a dozen ministers, officials, aides and allies of the prime minister make clear that in every regard this is wrong. Johnson was personally furious and knew he was taking a huge risk.
The question now is whether this was a pragmatic act of self-preservation or the moment the prime minister forfeited public trust and sowed the seeds of his own destruction.
Cabinet ministers believe the “Domnishambles” was caused as much by the cover-up as the original offence. When Downing Street was contacted on May 22 by The Guardian and the Daily Mirror, which were set to reveal that Cummings had fled to his parents’ home in Durham at the height of the lockdown, Cummings’s instinct was to ignore the story.
“He refused to comment and banned anyone else from commenting,” said one source. “His attitude was that this was a non-story, it’s left-wing papers and they can go f*** themselves. It was a five-day lesson in crisis mismanagement.”
The following day Downing Street issued a statement saying Cummings had gone north when his wife fell ill with coronavirus symptoms because he needed help to care for their four-year-old son. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, was sent out to say that once in Durham, Cummings had remained locked down.
Behind the scenes, Mark Spencer, the chief whip, and Ben Gascoigne, Johnson’s personal aide, contacted cabinet ministers asking them to tweet their support. Those in Johnson’s Covid-19 “quad” did so. Of the others, one said: “Dom has never been interested in my view. Why would he care if I’m backing him now?”
Even Cummings’s fans say he has never bothered to woo MPs. Andrew Bridgen, who defended him on television last week, observed: “They say if you want a friend in politics, get a dog — well, Cummings would kick the dog as well.”
Those further down the ladder received messages in which stick was more prominent than carrot. “The whips were saying you will have no future unless you get out there and back him,” said one MP.
The whips had rivals, however, with enemies of Cummings accused of seeking to drum up support for MPs to break cover and say he should resign. Penny Mordaunt, a Cabinet Office minister, has been dubbed “Poison Pen” for telling her constituents there were “inconsistencies” in Cummings’s account. Helen Whately, the care minister, and Alicia Kearns, a newly elected MP, are also suspected of disloyalty.
When it emerged last weekend that Cummings had taken a day trip to Barnard Castle in Co Durham, the initial defence was in tatters. Johnson, friends say, was angry with his most important aide but, like Cummings, never felt he should go.
“He understood what Dom did was wrong — both the original offence and the comms [communications] that followed it,” said one ally.
A Whitehall source added: “His view was, ‘I am buggered if I am going to be forced into firing an aide,’ but that doesn’t mean he is well disposed towards Dom. He’s extremely pissed off with him because he scooted off [to Durham] without telling him. Boris himself didn’t choose to decamp to Chequers when he was sick, which he could have done.”
One who knows Johnson well said: “I think at the root of all this is libertarianism.” The source added: “He doesn’t actually believe in locking everyone down. He knows he needs to, but he understands why people might transgress and he can’t bring himself to criticise it.”
Johnson also shared with Cummings a key world view. “They’re not two peas in a pod but where they do meet is on the idea of apologies,” a Tory source said. “Boris has always been clear that he doesn’t ever say sorry.”
Last Sunday morning Johnson called in Cummings and made him give a full account of his movements. He and his closest aides, including Lee Cain, the communications director, held a crisis meeting and agreed that Johnson should try to draw a line under the affair. “The idea was that he would make clear that he was satisfied with Dom’s account and try to shut it down,” said one insider.
But after being pounded with questions at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, Johnson had failed. “Boris took one for the team,” an official added. “After that press conference he came out and said that he had had his arse whipped live on national television and told Dom he would have to do the same.”
To make matters worse, several aides say Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, had refused to back him up publicly. “Whitty and Vallance refused to do the presser [press conference],” one ministerial aide said.
Ministers were also in revolt. “The cabinet moved in and said, ‘He has got to apologise, he has got to do something,’” a senior Tory said.
The decision that Cummings should make his own public appearance was confirmed at another crisis meeting on Monday morning. Cummings agreed, admitting the public reaction was worse than he had expected. “It has cut through,” he said.
But even Cummings’s allies could not persuade him to apologise. In the No 10 rose garden that afternoon, he said: “I don’t regret what I did.”
“He wouldn’t say sorry,” a source familiar with the discussions said. “The expectation in Downing Street was that the word ‘sorry’ would pass his lips for failing to clear things up earlier. But he wouldn’t do it and there was no one who could make him do it.”
Johnson was again in a foul mood, making clear his displeasure at having to do another press conference afterwards. “He was voicing what many people felt that we’ve all had a long couple of days,” said the source. As Johnson expressed regret for the “confusion and the anger and the pain that people feel” rather than the offence, a cabinet minister told a friend: “Why have we got the prime minister on television apologising for a special adviser. It’s insane.”
However, many ministers had concluded things had now gone too far for Johnson to ditch Cummings, “because it will all fall apart if he goes”, a senior Tory said. Priti Patel, the home secretary, was quickly in touch with the Metropolitan police commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, when a mob turned up outside Cummings’s north London home.
One of Cummings’s Vote Leave fraternity said: “We need him. We took three years to get the gang in there. We can’t throw that away now.” When one of his acolytes was asked what would happen if Cummings shot someone dead in the street, the reply came: “It would depend whether anyone saw him do it.”
Cummings is a little “chastened” by events but now appears unsackable. He sits in whatever meetings he pleases and is blamed by cabinet ministers for killing audiences with Johnson and filtering the flow of papers and information to the prime minister.
Growing in volume is the view that Johnson needs all the help he can get because he is still far from recovered from the virus. Those who watched his halting performance in front of the Commons liaison committee on Wednesday saw a man tired, irritable and struggling with detail.
“These stories about Boris being fed up with the job are all true,” a Whitehall source said. “He really isn’t very well. Boris is simply not operating as Boris.” Ministers say Johnson has been occasionally forgetful in meetings and was initially “unsighted” on aspects of the government’s quarantine policy.
The shock of the Cummings affair for MPs and ministers is that two populists who appeared to have an almost mystical understanding of the public mood seem to have misjudged voter fury at the “do as we say, not as we do” approach to lockdown. Some MPs received more than 1,500 emails of complaint. “I have never known anything that cuts through like this in my life,” a former No 10 aide said.
By Friday the atmosphere was so febrile MPs were sharing rumours in their WhatsApp groups that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, had punched Cummings in a fight broken up by Michael Gove, a claim variously dismissed as “not true”, “complete invention” and “total bollocks” by senior figures.
A veteran backbencher said: “The problem is that there are 109 new MPs who have not been under fire before. Steady in the ranks!”
Johnson will respond this week to the criticism that too many ministers have been excluded from key decisions by setting up a new Covid-19 war cabinet modelled on the two Brexit cabinet committees.
The quad of senior ministers — Gove, Raab, Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak — will be bolstered by Alok Sharma, the business secretary, and Patel on the coronavirus strategy committee, also a response to criticism that there were no women at the top table. Gove will chair a second, “operations” committee, just as he does on preparations for a no-deal Brexit.
Most believe Cummings will at least remain long enough to ensure Britain does not seek an extension of the transition phase past December 31. But some Tories fear Johnson has been materially damaged by his defence of Cummings, coupled with lingering doubts about the government’s handling of the virus and the threat of a catastrophic recession.
“I feel like we are living through a prolonged Black Wednesday and we are now in the John Major premiership,” said one senior Tory. “The chances of Boris leading us into the next election have fallen massively.”
Perhaps Hunt and McVey should keep their phones on.
Tim Shipman, Political Editor
11-14 minutes https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ummings-and-boris-johnson-show-over-9qgxxdlvz
There was a fleeting moment last week when Boris Johnson’s team felt as if it had time-travelled to Theresa May’s government — when a prime minister’s every action set leadership rivals plotting. As Johnson’s support for his senior aide Dominic Cummings — who had fled London during lockdown with his wife and child — caused the prime minister’s standing to plummet in the polls, word reached the whips that Jeremy Hunt, who lost the contest for Conservative leader last July, was phoning MPs.
“Hunt was calling around backbenchers asking what they thought,” a Tory adviser said. “He was saying, ‘I’m considering what I’m going to say.’ The perception from backbenchers was that this had leadership connotations. Hunt and others were using this to get in with people.”
Hunt says he is “done with” such ambitions, only spoke to members of the health select committee he chairs and points out that he publicly said Cummings should not resign.
In a WhatsApp message to her Blue Collar Conservatism group, the former cabinet minister Esther McVey — another leadership hopeful last year — was also counselling opinion. “I’m anxious to hear (in private) what people think about the Dominic Cummings situation and whether or not he needs to resign to protect the PM and the party,” she wrote, adding: “I would appreciate people not reply on here as it may leak.” In the time-honoured tradition, it then did so.
This weekend Johnson’s team is wondering not whether Cummings is going, but what the effects of his staying will be.
The affair was revealing: of the way Johnson’s top team does its business — with an unbridled aggression that can be self-defeating — and the reliance a highly centralised administration has on Cummings himself.
It also flushed out the degree to which a below-par Johnson is still leaning on others after his personal brush with the coronavirus. Yet the episode concealed just as much. The conventional wisdom has it that Johnson did not recognise what his aide had done wrong, was unconcerned by his behaviour and did not realise the depth of public disquiet about his support for Cummings.
Conversations with more than a dozen ministers, officials, aides and allies of the prime minister make clear that in every regard this is wrong. Johnson was personally furious and knew he was taking a huge risk.
The question now is whether this was a pragmatic act of self-preservation or the moment the prime minister forfeited public trust and sowed the seeds of his own destruction.
Cabinet ministers believe the “Domnishambles” was caused as much by the cover-up as the original offence. When Downing Street was contacted on May 22 by The Guardian and the Daily Mirror, which were set to reveal that Cummings had fled to his parents’ home in Durham at the height of the lockdown, Cummings’s instinct was to ignore the story.
“He refused to comment and banned anyone else from commenting,” said one source. “His attitude was that this was a non-story, it’s left-wing papers and they can go f*** themselves. It was a five-day lesson in crisis mismanagement.”
The following day Downing Street issued a statement saying Cummings had gone north when his wife fell ill with coronavirus symptoms because he needed help to care for their four-year-old son. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, was sent out to say that once in Durham, Cummings had remained locked down.
Behind the scenes, Mark Spencer, the chief whip, and Ben Gascoigne, Johnson’s personal aide, contacted cabinet ministers asking them to tweet their support. Those in Johnson’s Covid-19 “quad” did so. Of the others, one said: “Dom has never been interested in my view. Why would he care if I’m backing him now?”
Even Cummings’s fans say he has never bothered to woo MPs. Andrew Bridgen, who defended him on television last week, observed: “They say if you want a friend in politics, get a dog — well, Cummings would kick the dog as well.”
Those further down the ladder received messages in which stick was more prominent than carrot. “The whips were saying you will have no future unless you get out there and back him,” said one MP.
The whips had rivals, however, with enemies of Cummings accused of seeking to drum up support for MPs to break cover and say he should resign. Penny Mordaunt, a Cabinet Office minister, has been dubbed “Poison Pen” for telling her constituents there were “inconsistencies” in Cummings’s account. Helen Whately, the care minister, and Alicia Kearns, a newly elected MP, are also suspected of disloyalty.
When it emerged last weekend that Cummings had taken a day trip to Barnard Castle in Co Durham, the initial defence was in tatters. Johnson, friends say, was angry with his most important aide but, like Cummings, never felt he should go.
“He understood what Dom did was wrong — both the original offence and the comms [communications] that followed it,” said one ally.
A Whitehall source added: “His view was, ‘I am buggered if I am going to be forced into firing an aide,’ but that doesn’t mean he is well disposed towards Dom. He’s extremely pissed off with him because he scooted off [to Durham] without telling him. Boris himself didn’t choose to decamp to Chequers when he was sick, which he could have done.”
One who knows Johnson well said: “I think at the root of all this is libertarianism.” The source added: “He doesn’t actually believe in locking everyone down. He knows he needs to, but he understands why people might transgress and he can’t bring himself to criticise it.”
Johnson also shared with Cummings a key world view. “They’re not two peas in a pod but where they do meet is on the idea of apologies,” a Tory source said. “Boris has always been clear that he doesn’t ever say sorry.”
Last Sunday morning Johnson called in Cummings and made him give a full account of his movements. He and his closest aides, including Lee Cain, the communications director, held a crisis meeting and agreed that Johnson should try to draw a line under the affair. “The idea was that he would make clear that he was satisfied with Dom’s account and try to shut it down,” said one insider.
But after being pounded with questions at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, Johnson had failed. “Boris took one for the team,” an official added. “After that press conference he came out and said that he had had his arse whipped live on national television and told Dom he would have to do the same.”
To make matters worse, several aides say Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, had refused to back him up publicly. “Whitty and Vallance refused to do the presser [press conference],” one ministerial aide said.
Ministers were also in revolt. “The cabinet moved in and said, ‘He has got to apologise, he has got to do something,’” a senior Tory said.
The decision that Cummings should make his own public appearance was confirmed at another crisis meeting on Monday morning. Cummings agreed, admitting the public reaction was worse than he had expected. “It has cut through,” he said.
But even Cummings’s allies could not persuade him to apologise. In the No 10 rose garden that afternoon, he said: “I don’t regret what I did.”
“He wouldn’t say sorry,” a source familiar with the discussions said. “The expectation in Downing Street was that the word ‘sorry’ would pass his lips for failing to clear things up earlier. But he wouldn’t do it and there was no one who could make him do it.”
Johnson was again in a foul mood, making clear his displeasure at having to do another press conference afterwards. “He was voicing what many people felt that we’ve all had a long couple of days,” said the source. As Johnson expressed regret for the “confusion and the anger and the pain that people feel” rather than the offence, a cabinet minister told a friend: “Why have we got the prime minister on television apologising for a special adviser. It’s insane.”
However, many ministers had concluded things had now gone too far for Johnson to ditch Cummings, “because it will all fall apart if he goes”, a senior Tory said. Priti Patel, the home secretary, was quickly in touch with the Metropolitan police commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, when a mob turned up outside Cummings’s north London home.
One of Cummings’s Vote Leave fraternity said: “We need him. We took three years to get the gang in there. We can’t throw that away now.” When one of his acolytes was asked what would happen if Cummings shot someone dead in the street, the reply came: “It would depend whether anyone saw him do it.”
Cummings is a little “chastened” by events but now appears unsackable. He sits in whatever meetings he pleases and is blamed by cabinet ministers for killing audiences with Johnson and filtering the flow of papers and information to the prime minister.
Growing in volume is the view that Johnson needs all the help he can get because he is still far from recovered from the virus. Those who watched his halting performance in front of the Commons liaison committee on Wednesday saw a man tired, irritable and struggling with detail.
“These stories about Boris being fed up with the job are all true,” a Whitehall source said. “He really isn’t very well. Boris is simply not operating as Boris.” Ministers say Johnson has been occasionally forgetful in meetings and was initially “unsighted” on aspects of the government’s quarantine policy.
The shock of the Cummings affair for MPs and ministers is that two populists who appeared to have an almost mystical understanding of the public mood seem to have misjudged voter fury at the “do as we say, not as we do” approach to lockdown. Some MPs received more than 1,500 emails of complaint. “I have never known anything that cuts through like this in my life,” a former No 10 aide said.
By Friday the atmosphere was so febrile MPs were sharing rumours in their WhatsApp groups that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, had punched Cummings in a fight broken up by Michael Gove, a claim variously dismissed as “not true”, “complete invention” and “total bollocks” by senior figures.
A veteran backbencher said: “The problem is that there are 109 new MPs who have not been under fire before. Steady in the ranks!”
Johnson will respond this week to the criticism that too many ministers have been excluded from key decisions by setting up a new Covid-19 war cabinet modelled on the two Brexit cabinet committees.
The quad of senior ministers — Gove, Raab, Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak — will be bolstered by Alok Sharma, the business secretary, and Patel on the coronavirus strategy committee, also a response to criticism that there were no women at the top table. Gove will chair a second, “operations” committee, just as he does on preparations for a no-deal Brexit.
Most believe Cummings will at least remain long enough to ensure Britain does not seek an extension of the transition phase past December 31. But some Tories fear Johnson has been materially damaged by his defence of Cummings, coupled with lingering doubts about the government’s handling of the virus and the threat of a catastrophic recession.
“I feel like we are living through a prolonged Black Wednesday and we are now in the John Major premiership,” said one senior Tory. “The chances of Boris leading us into the next election have fallen massively.”
Perhaps Hunt and McVey should keep their phones on.
Last edited:
The degree of interest in Cummings affair has clearly been helped by blanket media coverage, but nevertheless the share of attention paid to the Durham trip (52 per cent) is greater than that paid to many a major story, including Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding (45 per cent, 2018), the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis (45 per cent, 2017) and the “Panama Papers” (35 per cent, 2016).
Why is this one different? First, almost everyone, including people who don’t usually follow the news, has been gripped by pandemic developments. We are all paying such close attention that any apparent liberties taken by high-profile businesses or people are going to generate far more interest and opinion than usual.
paywall: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/the-cummings-saga-has-gripped-the-public-in-a-way-we-ve-never-seen-before-hdh9qrml0
Why is this one different? First, almost everyone, including people who don’t usually follow the news, has been gripped by pandemic developments. We are all paying such close attention that any apparent liberties taken by high-profile businesses or people are going to generate far more interest and opinion than usual.
paywall: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/the-cummings-saga-has-gripped-the-public-in-a-way-we-ve-never-seen-before-hdh9qrml0
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We'll wait to see the details of the scheme, but its fair to say that the charity sector remains extremely sceptical of this. Building housing for homeless people has a tonne of pitfalls, and that's even assuming the Tories actually manage it in a remotely useful timescale. I'd bet that within 12 months the rough sleeping numbers will be closer to where they were before the crisis than where they are now.
Would the fact he has remained in his position only strengthen his position within thr government? The man appears untouchable at this point.
I would guess he's been significantly weakened. The Tories are driven by the need to win power at all costs, that's what gives you influence in the Tory Party. You can be hated by the party, like Cameron was, and people will back you if it puts the Tories in Government. The reason Cummings has so much influence is that his successes with Brexit and the last General Election both made him seem like someone with an unbeatable formula for success. For as long as he could keep that going, he'd be untouchable.
But suddenly his actions are dragging the Tories down in the polls and the idea that Cummings has some telepathic understanding of the people has been trashed. With an 80 seat majority, 4 years to another general election and so much political capital in the bank, no-one can force him out yet. The Tories aren't in crisis, even if their polling will be making them sweat. But he'll certainly be wounded. If he continues to be a liability, particularly given the number of enemies he's made, then as always with the Tories they'll knife him (and if needs be Johnson) in the back if it increases their chances of winning the next GE.
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Are they really that stupid? That people are just going to forget the utter shambles that has occurred because they are going to deliver brexit? Also, the 'strong man' message surely won't be received well considering how weak he has been in his decision making
We've got one 'strong leader' who runs to a bunker, and another who hides in a fridge - good luck in convincing people that you're strong, boys.
casting my mind back to the referendum
"weve had enough of experts"
£350m
"It will be the easiest deal ever
Turkey
Im not gonna say people are "that stupid" but I'm gonna go with at least some people will buy into it ... especially if its repeated and repeated and repeated as a catchy slogan
The Brexit debacle lasted three and a half years, the Covid-19 crisis so far, three and a half months.