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Discussion point: Don’t lock me down, baby It seems that the Mekon might be about to be knocked off his levitating chair. Dominic Cummings is in trouble for breaking the lockdown. He joins the epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson, for whom the lockdown was no obstacle to pantsdown, in the list of those caught violating the quarantine they urged others to obey. Oh and let us not forget Scotland’s (former) Chief Medical Officer, Catherine Calderwood, though I must admit I had.
Should Calderwood and Ferguson have resigned? Should Cummings resign now? Are there any principled reasons for differentiating between the three cases, by which I mean principles better than which political parties each of them are associated with?
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Nah, I can’t see this knocking Dom Cummings over as I’ve yet to see a plausible explanation of what laws he has actually broken. Plus he made the media staking out his home look like utter cunts 😆
Waiting for someone who took a private jet to Davos to comment on this.
Casualties of Lockdown and COVID-19 Kabiki.
Anyone working for an Airline.
9,000 Rolls Royce employees.
Hertz rent a car.
Airbus, we just haven’t heard about it, yet.
Every hotel chain,
70% of pubs and clubs.
any shops on the High street.
Plod! Plod raided a ‘virtual gathering‘ of customers at the Crown Pub in Cleator Moor.
Muppets.
What Dominic “if some old people die, that’s too bad” Cummings did was worse than Ferguson and Calderwood, by a country mile. It’s particularly notable that he seems very casual about infecting pensioners, given his contempt for the old and the sick.
Prime Minister Cummings should resign.
But of course, if he were to resign, Zaphod Beebleboris would have no hand up his arse to command him.
But remember, this is a government helmed by a man who thinks its ok to impose a surcharge on nurses who already pay taxes toward his putrescent government.
This is exactly why sensible leaders have a personal guard. The idea that the bureaucracy can just pick off people they don’t like, e.g. Andrew Mitchell, is intolerable.
As I think we’ve discussed before, the lockdown rules and their enforcement are actually more lenient and tolerant than a lot of people seem to think.
The phrase used is “no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”. But the phrase “place where they are living” does not nail down any specific residence that you must live at: – wherever you are living, that’s the “place where you are living”. And it doesn’t set rigid limits on “reasonable excuse” – a list of examples is provided, but are not exhaustive.
Cummings tells us he travelled in order to ensure parental care for his 4 year old child when his wife fell ill, and that for the duration of his quarantine he was living at the house in Durham, and didn’t move from there. It’s a reasonable excuse. It’s along the same lines as several of the examples listed.
To briefly visit your holiday home in the country, or to meet up with your mistress are rather less likely to be considered a reasonable excuse. (I can’t say I approve of their choices, but I don’t think it’s worth anyone losing their job over, either.)
But there is a combination of political opposition, envy, frustrated anger, and a puritanical virtue-signalling going on that has led to people interpreting the rules more strictly and harshly than I think was intended, that has in turn led to a lot of resentment when those perceived as being responsible don’t follow the rules collectively decided on by society. The government hasn’t gone out of their way to correct the misunderstanding, as it helps keep R down further, and they want to get it down as far as they can get away with. But in fact the rules set out by the government would allow anyone to travel for the purposes of essential work, looking after a child, a vulnerable person, or anyone who needed help to avoid harm. The idea is only to reduce contact between people by 75%, it’s neither scientifically essential nor even expected to stop it completely. The guidance is that we should all do our best as part of the common effort but for everyone to act reasonably and with tolerance, understanding, and common sense.
But nobody is going to say that, and nobody is going to be reasonable. Some will carry on because they hate Cummings for Brexit. Some because it would cripple Boris’s project to build a new free-trade Britain developing new technology, education and infrastructure. Some because they’re angry about the lockdown, and out for the blood of anyone deemed in any way ‘responsible’ for it. Some because it’s a way to signal their own virtue, their own superior martyr-like sacrifice, to denounce and join the lynch mob for any sinner who doesn’t fit in. As Mill put it: “the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.”.
No, I don’t think there should be any reason to treat anyone differently on the grounds of political sides. This was part of why I was more tolerant than many when Fergusson got caught – because if you let political animosity get in the way of principle, you cannot then call on principle when the politics is the other way round. You can’t object to the lockdown being over-strict, and then call for its over-strict enforcement yourself. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Er, I think you meant the epidemiologist NEIL Ferguson. Professor NIALL Ferguson is a historian, and a jolly nice guy.
Oh, good. I have enjoyed many of Niall Ferguson’s talks, and was a bit confused about how he got so deeply into the virus mess.
Er Gary, you can feel free to bugger off back to Comment is Free you frothing moron.
The stink around Cummings has nothing to do with the virus. Its the last gasp of the anti-Brexit movement , trying to force an extension, because the deadline is five or so weeks away and we are heading full-speed into a WTO Brexit, primarily because the EU are and have always been unreasonable arseholes.
After Trump Derangement Syndrome, and Brexit Derangement Syndrome, we can now add Cummings Derangement Syndrome.
James O’Brien sent almost 100 tweets today about Cummings.
Fergusson hasn’t lost his job. He lost an advisory role, where he advised one thing and did another. The break was flagrant, and repeated. That his advice tended to be shit might also be part of it.
Calderwood did lose a post, although more because she broke the rules repeatedly and lied about it — and it wasn’t for a decent reason like Cummings, just because she wanted to get out. And she was a medical person heavily advising one thing and doing another.
Cummings isn’t a medical person advising lockdown, and it was for a child.
But in his position, it was unwise to do it without signalling first.
In about half of the U.S. we can go to bars, clubs, even churches. As usual I wonder what’s going on with the UK. If the U.S. is on a path to be more like the UK, then the future looks bleak indeed.
@PdH says:
There are no Federal laws in the U.S. permitting a lockdown with any kind of penalties for non-compliance. Most States have not passed such laws either. Citizens have mostly obeyed these toothless rules, but our patience is out and the rules no longer obeyed. In red States, the governors have taken pains to clarify that there are no criminal penalties for non-compliance. In blue States court orders have started to come down to the same effect.
Oddly, in spite of it being clear that there are no criminal penalties in, say, Texas, or Florida, for non-compliance, local establishments have complied with the slow re-opening rules (25% last week, 50% this week). In Wisconsin, when the high court struck down the executive emergency order 28, the bars just opened that same night and were absolutely packed. What a strange and stark difference, but it makes sense: ask politely, and the citizenry might go along, but act like a tinpot dictator and you’ll get a rebellion.
Well, that’s Stateside anyways. What on Earth is going on in the UK?
I’m an atheist, but I’m also a fairly fanatical Constitutionalist, so I have to throw this out there:
“ . . . . even churches.“?
We don’t have explicit constitutional protection for bars and clubs, but we do for churches, and it scares me how quickly we knuckled under to something that our government has no power to do. Heck, most of the lockdown-type mayors and governors excepted shooting ranges from their initial shutdowns because of the constitutional aspect – but they’ve kept churches closed all over. We’re almost completely open here aside from restaurants, bars, theaters, etc – but churches have been locked down from the beginning.
Here in Minnesota, our gov closed all churches weeks ago, and only changed his order to 25% capacity and under 250 people yesterday, after the main church orgs finally announced on Friday that they were reopening no matter what he said.
I’m of a mind that our Constitution is a huge part of what makes us what we are, and we retain its benefits only by rabidly, fanatically protecting all aspects of it, and our rather craven capitulation to “except when we think it’s important” scares me for our future.
@bobby b: We have the right to free association, not just to practice religion. That means that the right to go somewhere public to meet with friends (or strangers) is protected. That includes churches separately from the right to free exercise of religion.
Throw the tyrants out.
Quite why Mr Cummings hasn’t resigned rather tham be associated with this incompetent and tyrannical government is a matter for his conscience. He is on a salary in the region of £100,000 pa doing a job that should not exist, any such position should be privately-funded or voluntary.
The alleged law he allegedly broke is vague, it might not even survive a judicial review. Anything might be a ‘reasonable excuse’ but then again anything might not be, as you appear to bear the burden of showing your excuse was ‘reasonable’, and the regulations do not say what test of reasonableness applies.
Mr Cummings ‘crime’ is to combine a haughty disdain for the media and politicians with an abrasive personal manner and to be, in Remoaner legend, the person who won the EU Referendum for Leave, he didn’t, the campaign won itself, with the main impetus coming from Nigel Farage and his unofficial campaign. Mr Cummings is a totemic hate figure for the Left; and as for us, it seems his main error is to believe that government can be made to work, when it needs to be made to vanish.
Look on the bright side. It has created the best newspaper headline since “Gotcha” and “Freddie Starr ate my hamster”.
Courtesy of the Daily Mail:-
“Piers Morgan issues ultimatum to Boris Johnson by telling him to sack Dominic Cummings TODAY”.
“The guidance is that we should all do our best as part of the common effort but for everyone to act reasonably and with tolerance, understanding, and common sense.”
Rather too much evidence of people who are not merely too keen to be told what to do by idiots who don’t understand the law (a general and increasing problem with British police ‘services’) but would be happy to join a lynch mob to punish someone who doesn’t obey their idea of what the pointless 2 metres might be – and if they were told that gassing a few million of their fellow citizens would improve things, they’d be on their doorsteps on a Thursday evening banging their pots and pans.
It has all proved revelatory or confirmatory (depends on one’s disposition) of the gullibility, ignorance and stupidity by which we are surrounded.
Chromatistes and bobby b, thanks for pointing out my Neil/Niall confusion. I’ll correct it.
IMHO Ferguson was removed because the government lost faith in his advice, his models were rubbish. His amorous adventures were simply used as extra ammo.
Calderwood resigned because the SNP is all about virtue signalling, and she wasn’t doing it right.
Cummins advice is valued, and this government has serious business to get done. He will stay.
When I first heard of this, I thought much as Nullius in Verba (May 23, 2020 at 11:59 pm) did. (Whether readers consider this independent coincidence of views in two who do not always agree strengthens the argument, I leave to them. 🙂 ) I offer my different way of saying much the same thing for whatever extra insights it may give. (Other thoughts in later comments.)
Dominic and Mary have a four year old son.
1) When people obliged to self-isolate have a four-year-old son (or any other dependent(s)), they have not merely a ‘reasonable excuse’ but a positive legal duty to move the child promptly to new carers before isolating. Immediate relatives are at the top of the list of candidates for such alternative carers.
2) It is inevitable that the child will have been in contact with the parents and is inevitable that the child will be in contact with the new carers. This is the irreducible minimum that cannot be avoided. It is obviously desirable, though not a legal duty (it will not always be possible), that the process of moving be done by the about-to-self-isolate, rather than by using a third party, to avoid contacts above this minimum. Thus driving directly in your self-isolating car to the new carers’ location is preferable to having the child moved there by others.
3) As soon as the child is no longer under your care (i.e. is in the new care point), it is clearly desired under the rules that you then minimise time and distance travelling to your self-isolation location. (Deliberately ignoring a convenient local one to make a long journey to another merely because you prefer it, without other reasons, is banned.) Thus a property closer to the point you are at, once you have deposited the child and can self-isolate, is preferable to one further from it (e.g. an available building next door is preferable to a more distant home).
So if we assume that we are talking about a single direct drive to the new carers, followed by rule-conforming self-isolation for the period required in a suitable nearby property, then it seems to me that critics need some very specifically-phrased ban on using immediate relatives instead of alternatives if the former are further than X miles (X < 130, i.e. half 260 since a return trip was avoided) in order to make an actual breach of rules out of the known facts so far. (Such a rule would be stupid, but if it could be quoted then the claim Dominic and Mary broke a rule would be factual.)
SUMMARY: the 4-year-old makes all the difference. This accusation (by remoaners with an agenda) depends on obfuscating the difference between driving 260 miles to another location to indulge a personal preference and doing so to place the child with carers.
“It has all proved revelatory or confirmatory (depends on one’s disposition) of the gullibility, ignorance and stupidity by which we are surrounded.”
This is the part that I find so utterly demoralizing, I always knew that there were idiots among us, I just didn’t realise just how pervasive they are.
Dominic’s own take on that is:
If you push the remoaners against a wall, they may well grant that Farage could have got 48% for Brexit (lots of deplorables for the elite to despise – what fun 😆 ). What they hate Boris and Dominic for is getting the extra 4% that meant victory (deplorables doing what they want, not what the elite say – what woe 😡 ). Are they right about that? Well, the vote was close.
I’ve never met him, so cannot say whether Dominic does or does not have an ‘abrasive personal manner’. His take on that claim is:
Obviously, there are those on this blog who could say the same – and more who could agree that we don’t want to be ruled by people that Sir Humphrey finds un-confrontational.
ASIDE: this decision of Boris and Dominic to make £350/NHS part of the campaign (they would call it a discovery, not a decision – or merely the decision to win, not lose) and then to be that remarkable thing, a politician who keeps his promises (i.e. not just the ones he anyway intended to carry out for his own reasons) affected this government’s reaction to the idea of the NHS being overwhelmed by the virus.
He’s lost Steve Baker. When you’ve lost Steve Baker…
APL,
The Police didn’t “raid”, the pub. They responded to a report of a breach of lockdown regulations. When they discovered the truth, they chatted to the landlord, waved to the virtual pub goers and, I understand, told one of the skeletons it was losing too much weight. Whether the initial allegation was made through ignorance or mischief making, is not known.
Again, it’s a case of damned because they did check or damned if they didn’t.
Yes I know, and it’s a pity. I think Steve (like me and many here) would have preferred a much greater realignment to the ‘Brexit survives’ victory of last December. However:
and I think Steve will not be the only one to be successfully obfuscated. The MSM rushed the accusation loudly on us. If you take it the way they framed it, they’ll take you. This one needs a little unpacking – as I and others have tried to do above. I hope Steve will not get stuck in his hasty view. Every con man knows the victim’s ego is his best ally (not that I doubt that the MSM took themselves first – obfuscated themselves first – with their ‘too good to analyse’ view of it).
FYI, Dominic on Steve:
CCPvirus is a big zero. Lots of folk –myself inc–have ignored the fucking LD since Day 1 (not the 8ft bit as I didn’t want bedwetters having a shit-fit and perhaps having to punch it out with the bastards–unneeded Plod attention). I would have ignored it more had there been anywhere much to go. Flubber is right –this is remainiac and leftist scum–Hi Gary– BS to try and “get” Cummings.
Soon there will be VAST rage against ALL 650 scumbags in the House of Scum and their hangers on. We need to remember that they ALL did this shite to us. Cos the MSM scum will try to claim ZaNu and Stumour were against it–prob using their brief race-baiting opposition to LD which they dropped the instant they saw the sanctimonious BS they could mine from a “deadly pandemic”. We need to remember that Stumour and his gang have spent 8 weeks cursing Blojo because his hysteria wasn’t hysterical enough.
By all means let brutal punishment fall on political and bureaucratic scum –but let it fall equally on ALL of them.
Mr Ecks (May 24, 2020 at 11:23 am), you are obviously a friend to Mr Cummings (on this point, at least) after the style of Spiked, whose article Dominic Cummings broke the lockdown? Good very quietly and briefly sort-of concedes, about half-way through, that there might be a case for saying maybe Dominic didn’t quite actually demonstrably break the formal requirements of the lockdown rules as such – but let’s praise him for doing so anyway! 🙂
With friends like those… 🙂 I see where they are coming from, but Niall pedant Kilmartin feels that the technical incorrectness of their title deserves notice. (It helps motivate me, of course, that the MSM are even more eager than Spiked to downplay it.)
As for “soon VAST rage”, I’m betting on slow realisation, delayed in many cases by reluctance to believe things that make prior beliefs look stupid.
“Quite why Mr Cummings hasn’t resigned rather tham be associated with this incompetent and tyrannical government is a matter for his conscience.”
Not so much his conscience as his opinion. He doesn’t consider it incompetent or tyrannical. Most people don’t.
“Anything might be a ‘reasonable excuse’ but then again anything might not be, as you appear to bear the burden of showing your excuse was ‘reasonable’, and the regulations do not say what test of reasonableness applies.”
“Reasonable” is a common legal formula. It basically means that it’s not possible to codify every conceivable condition and circumstance, and so they leave it to judge and jury to fill in the gaps.
“Mr Cummings ‘crime’ is to combine a haughty disdain for the media and politicians with an abrasive personal manner and to be, in Remoaner legend, the person who won the EU Referendum for Leave, he didn’t, the campaign won itself, with the main impetus coming from Nigel Farage and his unofficial campaign.”
Dominic can survive his disdain for the media and opposing politicians. He is much less likely to survive the opposition of the general public, if they should take this incident the wrong way. And the media and opposition are banking on the public doing so. We’ll see.
And it’s not just the remoaners who think he won the referendum. Nigel (and many politicians like him) are ‘personal conviction’ politicians. They don’t “go along to get along”. They don’t adjust their opinions to fit in, or get votes, or advance their career. They have their own strong, fixed opinions, and express them loudly, no matter the opposition. If people agree with him, fine, but if people don’t, he’ll ignore them and go his own way.
Dominic, by contrast, is ‘evidence driven’. He identified the people who could potentially be persuaded to vote ‘Leave’, found out what their reasons and motives and other opinions were, and tailored the campaign to them. He listened to the electorate. He listened to people outside the bubble of people who agreed with him. His goal was to win the referendum, not to promote his own opinions generally. The only opinions Nigel listens to are Nigel’s.
Nigel was certainly the one to get the referendum offered in the first place. He represented a big slice of grassroots opinion, pushed forcefully over all the opposition, proved impervious to all attempts to drive him out or discredit him, and forced it onto the agenda for discussion. Not caring about what other people think of you and being impervious to anybody else’s opinion is a big advantage in that sort of fight.
But the problem was that there were a bunch of other opinions tied up with the one on Europe that were less popular, and there were some genuinely popular ideas that Nigel’s set opposed. The majority wanting out of Europe had to ‘hold their noses’ on those other bits to vote for Nigel, and you saw how quickly UKIP declined once the referendum was granted, and how quickly voters dropped UKIP in favour of the Brexit Party second time around. Nigel knew that much of his position was a minority view, and he expected to lose. But he didn’t care – he was standing up for what he believed in.
Dominic was different. He focussed on winning the referendum, identified what tactics actually worked in shifting voters opinion, and didn’t let his own opinions or those of the politicians running the show get in the way. And it probably tipped the balance. Cameron knew Farage would lose when he offered to hold the referendum. Farage was too divisive, too controversial, too narrow a faction. Cummings then suddenly appeared out of nowhere and turned it into a win. They hate Farage, but largely hold him in contempt. But they recognise Cummings as the more competent political operator, and see him as the greater danger.
“This is the part that I find so utterly demoralizing, I always knew that there were idiots among us, I just didn’t realise just how pervasive they are.”
*Everyone* is an idiot on some topics, and competent on others. They’re literally everywhere!
“(Whether readers consider this independent coincidence of views in two who do not always agree strengthens the argument, I leave to them.🙂)”
One should always judge an argument by its content, not by who is presenting it! 🙂
Baker is a jellyfish who did a bit of blubbering about freedoms the HoTrash was wiping its backside on–but voted to support the tyranny anyway.
All 650 of them need to lose a LARGE amount of pay and pension.
But in truth that is NOT enough. They have fucked us over and ruined many of us and our lives will be worse in many ways for decades to come because of their stupidity, arrogance and gutless hysteria. “Lessons have been learned” doesn’t cut it this time.
They all need to suffer physically.
The fairest way would be a boxing booth. Each of them has to fight six aggrieved constituents. One 2 min round each with 2 mins rest between bouts. If they won’t fight they get a personal interview with half a dozen unpleasant types.
Fairness maintained by matching size etc. Fat old bags fight fat old bags etc. Rees-Mogg has to fight 6 weeds–but motivated weeds– who are determined to express their emotions. MPs opponents will be picked by lottery from economic victims of similar size and without any special skills –no boxers or MMA types.
Any MPs who might have an edge–Raab is reputed to be a karate BB and Mercer is an ex-squaddie–will find themselves facing somewhat upgraded opponants.
Both sides get 6 govt paid for boxing lessons. But that is all the MPs get whereas there would be time for the Public Retaliators (good name) to have another 5 or 10 private boxing lessons. Not too many–we don’t want them doing a “Scaramouche” and becoming experts–but enough so that more of their moves will be finding the mark than vice versa. There will be a ref and full medical staff and several extra attendants to “part them–they are incensed”.
It should happen the day before a Parliamentary opening. All the London Parks could be taken over so multiple booths can get it all done in the one day. If weather nice a grand day out for the public who can get there. All bouts video’d of course.
When Parliament opens the next day the sight of all 650 sitting there looking at each other with their bashed-up faces will go a long way towards taking the heat out of even a second Great Depression. “Yes” we can say, “no matter how bad it gets, at least those useless bastards actually paid a price, actually got some real punishment for once instead of sliding away greased by their bullshit”.
I also suggest that as soon as each of them emerges from the booth , photos be taken of their battered mugs. To be made into a 1ft square glossy photo on a cord. For the next year each of our 650 dear friends will wear that photo around their neck in place of the usual trappings-of-tyranny ID badges.
It should balance the national temper nicely and might even be good for the HoDross. The knowledge that they cannot behave in bungling and tyrannical fashion and hope to escape punishment will rein them in. And have a good effect worldwide on tinpot tyrants and wannabe globo-elites.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who can see this. The Grauniad sat on this non-story for weeks. Why are they unleashing it now, as extension request deadline looms and they see their last chance to stop Brexit disappear.
In terms of logic, yes, but in terms of gaining attention, such points can matter. Who wins this in the public domain will not be decided by mere logic but by whether the framing of it by those who rushed it out (maybe much surprising Dominic, who may never have thought about how that particular incident could be so spun) can be unpicked – which first requires gaining enough attention and not being drowned out. In terms of SW1, he can easily survive their adding this to their beliefs about him but, as you say, it matters if they get the general public to agree with them about this incident.
(BTW, this reminded me that the innocent can be easier to spring surprises on than the guilty, not just because the latter spend a little time thinking up excuses in case they’re needed, but because they are prepared for the logic of the accusation, whereas the innocent have to unpick it in order to work out how its elements relate to what they did.)
Trivially, I doubt that
is literally true, but I think I get the point you are making.
Cummings is clearly not a classic power politician (witness his contempt for Cameron as someone who “wanted To Be, not To Do” – Cummings convictions kept him often out of power). His belief that Brexit was needed because of the power of systemic processes liberated him – made the specifics of the campaign platform less concerning. When the highest claim of any specific programme “is merely to be probably right” (C.S.Lewis) then getting a system in place that respects systemic processes more than the EU – Cummings’ passionate conviction – is more important that whatever is the first programme that better process will be used to pursue. But he may also have been coming to think things that made the Brexitref-winning programme less uncongenial. Cummings thinks on long timescales, so his “reform the NHS after winning trust” (my summary) may not seem to him as big a difference as to some.
Niall, I agree.
In the interest of pedantry (and accepting that I can offer only the American legal-system view):
“The Reasonable Man” is a normative fiction that may be applied to determine when someone’s behavior meets, or fails to meet, standards, but it is generally only available in civil law.
In criminal law – which is what is discussed here – an accused must have been explicitly forewarned that his behavior is unacceptable. The definition of his crime must be clear. Comparing someone’s acts to what a “reasonable man” would have done makes it impossible for an actor to know with certainty that his contemplated behavior is prohibited criminally.
(The only exception that occurs to me is the melded crime of “criminal negligence”, and that’s because the reasonableness standard is used to first determine negligence.)
So, Person A may sue Person B and be awarded damages from him if he violates general “reasonable” norms, but the State cannot punish him and exact its pound of flesh for the same thing. You must violate specific and clear directives before you may be punished criminally.
“In criminal law – which is what is discussed here – an accused must have been explicitly forewarned that his behavior is unacceptable. The definition of his crime must be clear. Comparing someone’s acts to what a “reasonable man” would have done makes it impossible for an actor to know with certainty that his contemplated behavior is prohibited criminally.”
Well, I am not a lawyer, but that certainly wasn’t how I understood the law! (e.g. On “reasonable force”, “reasonable efforts”.) And having just checked, I’ve found half a dozen legal papers (e.g. here or here) discussing the question of “reasonableness” in criminal law, so there’s presumably some subtlety I’m missing.
I do agree, though, that it makes it impossible to know with certainty whether one’s actions are prohibited criminally. Situation normal, I’d have said. Sometimes you just have to hope and trust that a jury will agree with your good judgement.
(As it happens, in the case of this regulation, the police here have been instructed to ‘engage and explain’ first, and only use criminal penalties if that doesn’t work, or if the offence was obviously knowing and deliberate. So I guess that would meet your criterion. You would have been told.)
I probably could have been clearer.
The concept of reasonableness cannot be used in defining the elements of a crime – which is what seems to have been done in the situation above. Typically, a criminal statute will say that if you do A, and B, and C, you have committed Crime D. You cannot define one of those items based on the Reasonable Man standard – it must include a concrete definition of what is being listed as a required element.
Your examples – “reasonable force” and “reasonable efforts” – are items that come into play primarily in civil litigation. If a cop arrests you and uses something other than “reasonable” force, you may have a civil complaint against that cop. In order to charge that cop with a criminal offense, you will need to show that he acted in a manner that satisfied all required elements in the crime’s definition.
Reasonableness also comes into play in defenses against criminal charges. (I could not get your first link to load, but the second link seems to deal with defenses.) Your action might satisfy all of the required elements of a crime, but you might still have a legal defense to that charge – i.e., a reasonable person would have acted as you did in your situation out of necessity. You can get out of a criminal charge based on reasonableness – you can’t get charged based simply on what a “reasonable man” would do. That would be unconstitutionally vague.
Of course, this is all based on US constitutional law, so it might not be applicable where you are. But, by our standards, it sounds like they tried to define the crime by pre-limiting defenses to the crime instead of clearly defining the elements of the crime themselves.
Mr. ED
“He is on a salary in the region of £100,000 pa doing a job that should not exist, any such position should be privately-funded or voluntary.”
That was the thought that occured to me. You should be accountable to whoever is paying your wage, be that Johnson, the conservative Party or the tax-payer.
Does anyone think this Cummings story would even have been considered worthy of a one-paragraph filler piece at the bottom of page 22 if he had been on the Remain side?
Unlike Professor Ferguson and Dr Calderwood, Cummings is not a medical / scientific advisor caught hypocritically telling the public from their position of Olympian authority to do one thing while cheerfully indulging in the opposite themselves. If everyone to whom the police have spoken and ‘advised’ over lockdown during the past two months were fired or had their ‘resignation’ requested, the unemployment figures would be a heck of a lot higher than they are.
Moreover, as others above have pointed out, there is a world of difference between having your non-resident mistress visit your home for some between-the-sheets fun (Ferguson) or driving to your holiday home not once but twice (Calderwood) or driving hundreds of miles merely to wish your father ‘Happy Birthday’ in person rather than via a phone or Skype call (Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP) … and Cummings, driving to self-isolate near family to ensure that his kid could have proper care from other family members if and when the parents became too ill to do it.
It’s painfully obvious this story is not about lockdown at all. This is purely about pro-Brussels media outlets and the ‘Remoan Blob’ trying by any means possible to force the Government into a two year extension to the Subjugation Period, the deadline for which expires in about five weeks.
Those yelling for Cummings’s head on a spike do not care a thimble of cold spit about the lockdown per se, but they do care very, very much about forcing the UK to lick Eurocrat shoe-leather for as long as can be arranged. They see Cummings as an obstacle to that and want him out and replaced pronto with someone amenable who will simper into Boris’s ear next month: ‘Actually, old chap, we’ve spun this out for four years already, so what’s the harm in taking another year, or preferably two, to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s?’
In my case I am one of those annoyingly hard-to-pigeonhole radical classical liberals who a, wanted the UK to leave the EU and were v. pleased that Mr Cummings ran a masterful campaign in 2016 to get us out; b, not especially taken with DC’s wider sort of managerialist political philosophy (inasmuch as he has one at all); c, disliking of the lockdowns – and possibly Mr Cummings’ support for these after initially apparently backing the herd immunity angle; d, I disapprove of the excuses he gave for doing what he did. I think he should have resigned.
Millions of people have been prevented from seeing the parents (as I have; my 86-year-old Dad marked his birthday this week on his own), so I am not minded to cut that much slack to someone who works the rules via his perch in 10 Downing Street. And it was all so avoidable – he could have made alternative childcare arrangements from what I read without driving up the UK. He could have even issued a press release, covered his arse, and so on. So why didn’t he? Because, I suspect, because he thought it beneath him. That is what sticks in the craw.
Let’s not forget part of Cummings’ political appeal was that he was, he said, against the Whitehall Establishment. Look at his scruffiiness and scowling dislike of bureaucrats. That was all part of his schtick. To find out that he was not going along with the lockdowns is a bit of a shock.
And he has become the story. Yes, I get that a lot of Leftie journalists are out to get him, but a bit of streetwise political nous would have informed him that this was always so, and therefore to avoid giving away free hits.
This has been the main story of the past 48 hours. The BBC News today devoted 20 minutes of one of its main broadcasts to this; the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong got about four, from my rough calculation.
What a time to be alive.
“The concept of reasonableness cannot be used in defining the elements of a crime – which is what seems to have been done in the situation above. Typically, a criminal statute will say that if you do A, and B, and C, you have committed Crime D. You cannot define one of those items based on the Reasonable Man standard – it must include a concrete definition of what is being listed as a required element.”
I don’t get the distinction between elements of a crime and a defence. Surely the elements of a crime include that none of the defences apply?
For example, I can use reasonable force to eject a trespasser from my property. Using force against somebody is assault and battery, and ejecting a trespasser by force fits the elements of the crime. If I use unreasonable force it is certainly a crime! So in ejecting a trespasser by force, do I actually commit the crime of assault but separately to that have ‘a defence’ which somehow neutralises the effect? (So it’s like a crime with no penalty?) Or is it not a crime at all, because one of the elements of the crime is missing? (That the use of force be ‘unlawful’, and the definition of ‘lawful’ here contains ‘reasonableness’.)
It seems to me, if I am uncertain of what constitutes “reasonable” force, I must perforce be uncertain whether what I’m doing is an actual crime. It seems like an empty distinction to me.
But perhaps I’m still missing something. Could we argue that the elements of the crime are ‘leaving the place where you live’, and having a ‘reasonable excuse’ counts as a ‘defence’? Is that what you mean?
I’m just curious.
“He could have even issued a press release, covered his arse, and so on. So why didn’t he?”
I gather from comments at Guido’s that the information was actually mentioned in passing by his wife Mary Wakefield in a radio interview about a month ago, and also in a Spectator article. It wasn’t considered a big secret. The Guardian apparently got the story from already public information put out by the couple themselves. It’s not clear why they waited so long to make such a fuss about it.
We could discuss accountability, what public figures must do to maintain the credibility of what they say, or what constitutes a resigning offence for a government adviser. However, the wall-to-wall media coverage of this very minor event suggests that it’s not really about any of that. It suggests that some sections of the media have spotted an opportunity to bring down a man that they loathe for a mixture of personal and ideological reasons, and to show the government that they still have the power to do that. Therefore, it’s really just a power play and the government will be obliged to respond in the same way and defend its man to the hilt.
I think that you could argue that, logically, this must be the case – that it is an implicit element – but other legalities downstream of this process mandate that the definition of the elements of a crime be maintained cleanly, and thus this combined process must always be kept as a two-stage process – 1), that one’s acts do satisfy all elements of the criminal offense, and thus one has committed that offense, and then only after this, 2), that there are no applicable defenses. Part of the reason for this is really a tautology – prohibiting use of a “reasonableness” standard (for a defense to a charge) within the criminal act elements themselves maintains the constitutionality of the process – once you define the elements of a crime to include “but the defendant did not act unreasonably”, you’ve entered into the “unconstitutionally vague” category. The standard for being forgiven for a crime is easier than the standard for being found guilty of a crime.
I’m not doing a clear job of explaining this, I think, and so I’m going to rifle through some of my old material and find someone else’s explanation that is better. More to come . . .
But since that was not what Dominic did, nor the excuse he gave for it, your argument misses its mark.
If you had driven to your dad, or other selected relative, in order to pass your young children into their care before self-isolating, and the police fined you for doing that, then you would have an argument that there was one law for Cummings and another for you.
But since it is quite clear the rules do not allow such socialising as birthday visits, whereas caring tasks are explicitly mentioned in the “include but are not limited to” descriptions of possible reasonable excuses, I’m guessing police have not issued fines for such a case. (I think we can assume the MSM will inform us if a case where they did emerges. 🙂 )
Johnathan’s mistake is significant. This accusation (by remoaners with an agenda) depends on obfuscating the difference between driving to another location to socialise (clearly finable under the original lockdown rules) and doing so to place the child with carers before self-isolating (as clearly defensible under the ‘reasonable excuse’ list). That Johnathan can miss the difference shows that others, less attentive to details, may also do so.
Indeed so; strong evidence that Dominic and Mary thought it well within the rules – and their immediate hearers and readers did not disagree. (Compare the fact that we did not learn of Neil Ferguson’s extra-marital escapade from his writing a “ways to have fun in lockdown” article on it.)
I’d say it was very obvious: it took them some six weeks to figure out how to reframe it and launch the story in a way that would make it appear to be a breach. (I have heard a rival theory: some mid-yearish deadline for our brexitting deal comes soon and they wanted to launch it close to that so the effect would not have dissipated.)
There is also the basic propaganda-theory point that the Grauniad needed a time gap, so the story could appear to be a dramatic reveal, not an “as Mary and Dominic were just saying” follow-up. If they’d made a big fuss the day after Mary’s April Radio 4 interview on her virus experience, not a month and a half later, when Mary and Dom’s opinion that it was within the rules was in the public domain as yesterday’s story, i.e. when Mary and Dom’s reply to the accusation is their obviously genuine already-held belief, then it is much harder to spin their denial as a “hasty excuse now I’m caught” absurdity. (This has the downside for the MSM that the question “Why did you not object at the time?” is then very reasonable, and undercuts their necessary claim of “It obviously violates the rules (so obviously we need not explain exactly how)”, but on balance I think they made the right choice from their PoV. If the Radio 4 interviewer had said, “Excuse me, but were you not violating lockdown rules?” then Mary would have replied, “How do you make that out?” and a genuine discussion of what was and was not a ‘reasonable excuse’ would have been unavoidable.)
A new twist (well new to me) has been added to the story today with the appearance of references to Dom and Mary’s son being autistic and therefore disturbed by unfamiliar faces. Before this story broke, I saw an article or two on how lockdown is specially hard for those with autistic children. (The BBC article even notes that
a sentiment to which I’m sure Dom and Mary can relate 🙂 ). Since this story broke, however, the links most eagerly offered by websearch tend towards
and
and so on. (So why is this ‘fellow parent’ not now really relieved?)
As I have said (at some length 🙂 ) above, I see the placing with immediate relatives as OK under the rules for any four-year-old, and it’s well-known that young children prefer the familiar in general, never mind autistic ones. That said, the change of tone from past to present in the comments that websearch most eagerly offers is interesting, though perhaps not surprising.
8:39 am, 25 May, Niall wrote:
But since it is quite clear the rules do not allow such socialising as birthday visits, whereas caring tasks are explicitly mentioned in the “include but are not limited to” descriptions of possible reasonable excuses, I’m guessing police have not issued fines for such a case. (I think we can assume the MSM will inform us if a case where they did emerges. 🙂 ) Johnathan’s mistake is significant. This accusation (by remoaners with an agenda) depends on obfuscating the difference between driving to another location to socialise (clearly finable under the original lockdown rules) and doing so to place the child with carers before self-isolating (as clearly defensible under the ‘reasonable excuse’ list). That Johnathan can miss the difference shows that others, less attentive to details, may also do so.
Not quite the full cigar on this one, I am afraid. DC has relations who don’t live up in Durham, but London, and so on the “reasonable” basis he was using in the press conference just now, he could have stayed in the capital, as many others have had to do, during this shit-show. I sympathise with his position – a parent of an autistic young boy – but it seems a bit implausible to me that someone in his position and importance could not have done something closer to home.
At the very least, from a purely tactical point of view, he could have raised this point earlier, and proactively so, and challenged the media baying dogs to explain why he was wrong in this case.
One thing everyone can agree on is that this disaster (there is no other word for it) has brought out some really nasty attitudes, and reinforced my existing contempt for much of the media.
What he said was that he had one 16-year-old niece and one 17-year-old niece at the site he went to, who had agreed to care for his son at need, who were competent to do that caring, and who were at very low risk because of their age, whereas the relations in London did not meet these criteria, so involved higher risk. As he was able to drive to these nieces on a single tank of petrol without stopping, he saw the risk of getting there as no different from that of driving to London relations.
I note he is also stressing that he had a short window in which to decide: he believed (correctly as it turned out) that he either drove to the location on the day he did or not at all as he would himself be too ill the next day. Any politician, both those we like and those we don’t, will play the sympathy card if they can. That said, I can see it would have been an alarming time for him: wife ill, self sure you will be tomorrow, young son to look after and the virus more alarming then than it has since become. This is relevant to the press’ line about “this is not about legality” and he should have been above suspicion, not just defensible under the stated guidelines.
One point for me to qualify: I did not hear Mary’s Radio 4 broadcast in April nor read her article. It would seem neither spelt out the Durham angle but concentrated on the experience, so the press may have an answer to “why six week’s delay?” – they were not as fully informed as we imagined back then.
That said, cutting the press slack on this bit actually leads on to
because (not only is there no argument from me there, Johnathan, but) Dom’s reply to “why didn’t you tell us you were in Durham, give us the address?” was “nasty stuff was happening at my London house” (even back then, before the ‘disaster’) “so why would I tell you where I was isolating so nasty stuff could happen there instead or too?” This seems a very fair point (see my link at May 25, 2020 at 12:46 pm above, which notes that the press themselves do some of the nasty stuff – graffitti and so on, over and above the aggressive doorstepping, and reward those who do other nasty stuff). However Dom’s remark does suggest that my and Nullius’ earlier remarks about ‘Mary and Dom put it all in the public domain six weeks ago’ may have assumed too much.
Since the rules of March 22nd and 23rd did specifically name ‘caring for a vulnerable person’ as one of the reasonable excuse cases, and then specifically identified “a young child” as one category of vulnerable person, I continue to think he cannot be logically ‘got’ on this in terms of explicit demonstrable violation of prohibition; he can only be accused of ‘pushing it’. Whether that accusation is fair or unfair depends on whether you agree he was minimising risk by going to his teenage nieces in Durham instead of his relations in London. (FWIW, it sounds correct to me.)
Meanwhile the PR war continues.
“DC has relations who don’t live up in Durham, but London, and so on the “reasonable” basis he was using in the press conference just now, he could have stayed in the capital, as many others have had to do, during this shit-show.”
Distance isn’t relevant, and the rules don’t mention it. What matters is reducing contact between people, to reduce the chances of infection. So far as I can determine, the family had no such contacts with other people. The distance to this relative or that is no more relevant than whether a lorry driver delivering food does so locally or long distance. What matters is the precautions taken to avoid spreading it.
The actual rule is that “no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”. The only question, therefore, is whether he had a reasonable excuse. Since reasonable excuses include not only more serious emergency situations like providing emergency assistance and escaping danger, but also more mundane ones like going to work, delivering groceries to elderly neighbours, moving house, and daily exercise, and given that we’ve already established that several of those set no limit on the distance to be travelled (do you think lorry drivers delivering groceries across the country are so limited?), I don’t think there’s any question that it was not a breach of the rules.
I think it may be legitimate to argue that in trying to keep the message simple, they have oversimplified and led to people stopping at home in circumstances where it wasn’t the best thing to do, when it became apparent that people were applying the rules more strictly than intended they let the misunderstanding continue, and now they’ve got caught out with the rules as people misunderstood them rather than the rules as they were. Letting errors stand when they happen to be convenient can catch you out when circumstances change.
“At the very least, from a purely tactical point of view, he could have raised this point earlier, and proactively so, and challenged the media baying dogs to explain why he was wrong in this case.”
But that’s what the baying dogs want. It keeps the story alive. To report on the rebuttal, they have to first explain all the accusations and background, and introduce the story to a new set of readers. The ideal tactic in a news campaign is to have a series of back-and-forth accusations and responses and breaking developments spread out every few days over several weeks, so each one can get given saturation news coverage and then shift to the next development before it gets boring. It’s called ‘giving the story oxygen’.
A news story usually has a couple of days life in it if it’s not fed. The media give it coverage, then it gets boring and disappears, so if you leave it alone it usually just goes away doing minimal damage. But if somebody wants to do a sustained campaign, they’ll collect a lot of material and then ration bits and pieces out every few days. When that happens, the best tactic then is to do a one-off comprehensive rebuttal, get all the damaging or embarassing facts you know about out in the open all at once, and then shut up about it. Don’t comment further, don’t revisit, don’t respond.
It was only when it became apparent this was turning into a longer campaign that they responded. But if Dominic Cummings gave press conferences every time someone wrote something nasty and false about him, he’d never do anything else, and he’d never be out of the news.
In the meantime, I’ve seen the news showing some journalist stood outside some landmark reading out a story, where there’s absolutely no journalistic reason they had to travel there, it’s just to act as a visual background to the reporter telling us what happened (or more often, what’s not happening), I’m astonished that nobody has ever challenged them on their hypocrisy. Like that bunch of idiots packed together on Dominic Cummings doorstep scrambling to get a photo – didn’t they have any stock footage? Did they think of all the single parents stuck at home with the kids, while they travelled to Dominic’s house to harass him on a political mission? What happened to “Stay at home”? Oh, yes, but it’s one rule for journalists, and a different rule for everyone else.
Or maybe people have raised it, but the journalists choose not to report it? There’s a lot of power in being a gatekeeper.
Nullius in Verba (May 25, 2020 at 5:41 pm), while I agree in general, as regards
Hmmm …
There has been mention of resolving issues locally where possible that could be seen as clarifying the definition of ‘reasonable’ under the rules.
Dominic’s argument for Durham’s minimising risk, and the fact that he could drive there without any stopping / getting out of car, i.e. without making driving there any riskier than driving anywhere closer, could be seen as part of establishing the reasonableness of his action.
That said, you are correct that someone who meets the criteria (caring for vulnerable person) seems to have discretion under the rules – the above affects the ‘pushing it’ debate more than the strict literal ‘broke rules’ debate.
Guido has, as regards the pile-up outside Dominic’s, but your point about what is more reasonable in reporters being anywhere other than in their own homes looking at a camera is well taken.
Well there has been an application for interim relief against the Coronavirus restrictions, an application made by a mosque in Bradford, arguing that the restrictions on worship contravene the right to thought, conscience and religion, but it failed.
At least someone has tried to challenge the tyranny.
I would much rather live in a UK where muslims could worship, and I could express an opinion on Mohammed without fear of arrest, than the reverse. I would also like to be rid of the vile ECHR.
Helen Dale makes this comment about the Cummings explanation for his trip to the badlands of Durham:
Like Ms Dale, I have great deal of sympathy for Cummings’ situation (and some of the press commentary and stuff I am seeing on the internet is horrible, and I hope for Karma to bite in their cases). But…..the reasons given here in his defence come up against the point about moving a child out of an isolating household. That, for me, is game over.
Another point worth thinking about is that Cummings is part of a government that at one stage was, apparently, going for the “herd immunity” strategy, but for whatever reason (panic, probably) changed course to an indiscriminate lockdown, enforced with all the brute nature we know about. People unable to attend family funerals, to see loved ones in their final days in hospital (I know several people in that situation), etc. There are tens of thousands of people in this situation.
Check out this commentary by Toby Young and James Delingpole, both hardline Brexiteers and broadly speaking, classical liberals with a bit of an edge. They think DC needs to go, not least because of his involvement in the lockdowns and the thinking around it.
“But…..the reasons given here in his defence come up against the point about moving a child out of an isolating household. That, for me, is game over.”
It’s also not true.
They didn’t have the children looked after by the grandparents, nor was that ever a consideration. They moved there so that if both he and his wife were incapacitated a couple of his younger relatives, (17 year old and 20 year old nieces, I think?) who also lived on the estate could take over. As it turned out they weren’t needed because even though Dominic was incapacitated his wife wasn’t. Mary looked after the boy while Dominic was ill.
At the time they made the journey, neither of them had COVID-19 symptoms. Dominic was still feeling healthy, although he was concerned because of the number of his colleagues who had gone down with it. Mary had been seriously ill, but not with a cough or fever.
The legislation doesn’t set any limit on journey length – there was guidance earlier about not travelling long distances to do daily exercise, but where there’s a need to travel further to deal with safety issues or for work then you should travel as required. Otherwise you couldn’t have long-distance lorry drivers taking groceries up to supermarkets in the North.
And under the rules as they stand, you *can* remove young children from an isolating household if all the adults are incapacitated. You can do whatever is needed to provide assistance in an emergency and to prevent harm.
So, given that half the story was wrong, is that still game over?
“Another point worth thinking about is that Cummings is part of a government that at one stage was, apparently, going for the “herd immunity” strategy, but for whatever reason (panic, probably) changed course to an indiscriminate lockdown, enforced with all the brute nature we know about.”
I’ve explained numerous times why they changed policy. They hadn’t understood until then the implications of overloading the NHS on mortality, or how long it would take if you made sure not to overload the NHS. And there was no brutality – the instructions given to police were to engage and explain first, and only impose fines (roughly on the level of a parking ticket) if persuasion didn’t work.
“They think DC needs to go, not least because of his involvement in the lockdowns and the thinking around it.”
I think much of the issue here is that most people don’t seem to understand what the lockdown rules were, or what they were for. Some of that is certainly the government’s fault. They knew that a lot of people would struggle with more complicated rules needing judgement and common sense to be applied (especially embedded in 12 pages of legalese), so condensed it down to a simple-to-understand slogan. But the slogan was (obviously?) not the rule. They didn’t go out of their way to make that clear, and that was a failure.
The actual rule is that “no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”. The only question, therefore, is whether he had a reasonable excuse. Since reasonable excuses include not only more serious emergency situations like providing emergency assistance and escaping danger, but also more mundane ones like going to work, delivering groceries to elderly neighbours, moving house, and daily exercise, and given that we’ve already established that several of those set no limit on the distance to be travelled (do you think lorry drivers delivering groceries across the country are so limited?), I don’t think there’s any question that it was not a breach of the letter of the rules. Ensuring the safety and care of a young child (especially an autistic one) is not just some trivial whim.
Nor is it a breach of their spirit. The aim is to reduce contact between people to prevent spread of the virus, at least 75% and as much more as is feasible while still carrying out essential activities and protecting lives. They did that. They had no close contact with anyone else outside the family unit throughout the isolation period. They did what they did to keep their family and everyone else safe. The same principle does and should apply to everyone.
Some of this is clearly the result of confusion and errors about what Cummings did, and misunderstandings about what the lockdown rules actually require. I think most of this is just political dislike and resentment – whether that dislike is motivated by opposition to Brexit, opposition to Boris’s plans, or opposition to the lockdown.
Both the American “Tony Heller” (not his real name) and the Irishman David Cullen have produced good films exposing the fraud the “Lockdowns” were based upon.
Both the fraud itself – and the totalitarian (Agenda 21, Agenda 2030) objectives that motivated the fraud.
The virus is real, horribly real – it has killed vast numbers of people, but everything else pushed by governments and the “mainstream” media has been a lie – and a lie motivated by the worst of motives, the desire to work towards tyranny.
The forces of the totalitarian “New Normal” must be defeated.
Nullius in Verba (May 26, 2020 at 5:12 pm) is a good summary. I offer some minor comments/corrections.
The nieces were aged 16 and 17 (according to my possibly-incorrect or misheard memory of a statement I heard Dominic make in answer to a question), not 17 and 20, but obviously it hardly matters either way. They were to join him in the isolating household to care for the son (and keep an eye on the parents) if needed. (As Mary had recovered enough to care for son by the time Dominic was too ill to care for him, the nieces did not have to join them.)
I don’t know about Mary having cough and fever or not but the drive was because Mary was too ill to care for the son. I don’t see that cough or fever would have mattered. If she got into a car in her own driveway and got out at the far end and went immediately into the isolation building, and spent the intervening time in car with the doors and windows continuously closed, she was self-isolated.
Correct, but many things were explicitly excluded from being reasonable excuses. Going to a funeral, wedding, party, and a whole bunch of other things were excluded, no matter how careful your social distancing when there and how reasonable your desire to go. Non-essential work was excluded. Going to your holiday home or similar (e.g. a building on a relative’s farm) for no better reason than because you preferred to isolate there instead of in your main dwelling was explicitly excluded. Etc, etc.
Explicitly included as able to be a reasonable excuse was travelling to ensure continuing care of a vulnerable person. Explicitly included in the categories of vulnerable people was ‘young children’. Without this, Cummings would find the act hard to justify. With it, he has his excuse – he was ensuring his 4-year-old son would be cared for if he and Mary both became too ill. Whether he strictly needs the argument for Durham rather than some closer relative (the nieces would not die or even get too ill to care, whereas older relatives living nearer might well do both) is debatable. PR-wise, he very much needs it. You can argue the rules and clarification remarks have enough ‘resolve locally’ hints that he formally needs it. Either way, he has it.
I think Nullius’ remarks on “the slogan versus the rules” are sensible; it’s in this public confusion that the idea of Cummings having broken the rule flourishes.
Although I don’t agree with Nullius about the wisdom of strict lockdown instead of herd immunity plus more voluntary (more Sweden-style) restraint, and feel the event has proven we needed less lockdown than we had, I greatly disapprove of Cummings being sacked (or Boris weakened) to give the MSM a lying triumph. Suggesting he should go anyway is not a timely or wise argument. “Time to open up faster” is a very timely argument – so maybe “The less people are locked down, the less they will remember resenting that Dom (seemingly) wasn’t” is a timely argument.
“The nieces were aged 16 and 17 (according to my possibly-incorrect or misheard memory of a statement I heard Dominic make in answer to a question), not 17 and 20, but obviously it hardly matters either way.”
You can check.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-statement-speech-transcript-durham-full-text-read-lockdown-a9531856.html
“Although I don’t agree with Nullius about the wisdom of strict lockdown instead of herd immunity plus more voluntary (more Sweden-style) restraint, and feel the event has proven we needed less lockdown than we had”
While I do have an opinion, usually here I’m arguing about why I think the government did it, what the evidence and argument they based their decision on were. There are aspects to it that I think one can legitimately argue against, it doesn’t achieve anything to tilt at strawmen.
You could, for example, argue that half a million deaths is no big deal. (That’s a question of values, rather than fact.) You can maybe argue about the evidence supporting the estimates of R0, or the death rate, by providing better evidence. You can argue about the choices they made of which things to ban and which to allow in the “R budget”, where they are making political and economic choices. You can argue (again, if you have evidence) that there are better ways to get R down. You can argue that some of the things they banned were not strictly necessary for epidemiological reasons, but were done for political/psychological reasons – to do with perceptions of “fairness/equality”, or the need to keep the rules simple.
I don’t agree with everything they’ve done. But I think that until you understand what the arguments and evidence they’re using actually are, and where they come from, you can’t rationally argue that they’re wrong. But I don’t have any problem with the idea that they could be wrong.