RandoEFC

I'm not sure about that. Cummings isn't well liked among MPs and had run ins with some of those ERG types over the running of the Vote Leave campaign. I've seen at least one journalist mention that there was already no love lost between Baker and Cummings.

Tobias Ellwood is the only one I've seen that I've actually heard of before this.

Up to four now.

Two

We've got a runner...

The family live in London. His wife started showing symptoms. I dont know if it's clear whether he had started showing symptoms to but they drove up to some property in Durham where his parents live and stayed there. The guidelines expressly state that if you or one of your household are showing symptoms which at least one of them was, then you must not leave your home under any circumstances. Again, their home is in London. The excuse is that they might not be able to look after the 4 year old son if they both got really ill, but other people have been put in the same scenario and had to make do. Some say they even rang 111 and were told that they were categorically not allowed to seek help with childcare and that the entire household should self isolate for 2 weeks. Even if this weren't the case and/or the Cummings were both hospitalised with Covid 19, the wife has a brother who lives in London, removing the last possible excuse they could have to drive all the way to Durham. The Mirror and the Guardian have allowed government to fight this out throughout the day before reporting that Cummings made a second trip back to Durham. He was pictured in London on two separate days after the initial trip to Durham. Then after the date of these two pictures, there are multiple eye witnesses reporting that they saw him in Durham again including out at a site 30 miles away from his parents house. People are also now digging up tweets from around 10th May from people asking why they've recognised Cummings out and about in Durham when they know he lives and works in London and we're supposed to be in lockdown. I don't know if this is the date of the second visit or a third, separate phase of time spent in Durham without looking it up again but this thing is cut and dry. He's been caught red handed.

Go and read . This has just been dug up on Twitter from earlier in May.

There's only murmuring so far of back benchers being unimpressed but none breaking ranks yet. Poor Grant Schapps is doing Sophy Ridge's show and Andrew Marr tomorrow morning after doing this afternoon's briefing. Talk about your heavy lifting...

The Last Kingdom, decent enough.

Didn't take very long. Looks like the public aren't that bothered about donkey fields after all.

Played the odious, predictable twats like a fiddle. Nothing sweeter than seeing independent journalism bring down one of the king pins behind creating the culture war in this country that had led to independent journalists who report based on facts rather than their own political beliefs to be denigrated, caught in the crossfire of Britain's new football politics. I now hope to see no mercy from the BBC particularly in finishing off the little scrote who has held a knife to their throat in his mission to eradicate unbiased political reporting in the UK. This was his smug face earlier, literally goading the media because he thinks he "beat them" by winning the referendum but now the Mirror and Guardian have twisted the knife. The best part is leaving the Part Two long enough to give Raab, Hancock, Sunak and co the chance to put the pandemic ahead of loyalty to an unelected colleague. They made their choice and will now be tainted by the consequences.

FINISH HIM

It isn't though, its 52/28 because 20% of voters stay at home. In this scenario, a referendum would return a result of 65%/35% in favour of Dominic Cummings to LEAVE his position.

WILL OV DER PEEPULL

It's too windy to go on a decent walk this weekend so I thought I'd be bored but watching the Tories dig a hole that the majority of the straight thinking public, finally, won't follow them into is pretty great viewing.

I've just seen a sensible suggestion that it's being blocked because of Twitter policy on the word "cumming" and it's other meaning. Makes sense to be fair. Should have been able to figure that one out myself. *puts tinfoil away*

Trying to take this away from the Covid thread so it doesn't get overrun again by UK politics. People started kicking off last night that everything except Dominic Cummings was trending on Twitter while stuff like Durham, #sackDom etc was. I was sceptical at first of the people putting the tin foil hats on but I've just noticed this: It looks to me to be incredibly suspect that no trends involving the word "Cummings" have made it into UK trends. Dom and Dominic seem to be fine but the killer for me is that #sackcummimgs has made it into the top UK trends because a few people have managed to get it trending to prove this point. I'm open to anyone explaining to me something I don't know about Twitter and the algorithms that has kept the combination of letters Cummings out of UK trends since this story broke, otherwise you've got to go to the Occam's Razor of there being some filter in place that prevents Cummings from trending to try and reduce the span of the story. If this is the case, what are the implications? Seems pretty scary to me if true.

Think it's a massive own goal the Tories doubling down on this. Giving Cummings the boot would have been a loss but they risk turning this into a real scandal. There's no viable line of defence here and even if they manage to fend off the media you would expect Starmer and Labour to have a field day on this one. There isn't much that can penetrate the walls of the party political and Brexit divisions now but there will be plenty of pro-Johnson/Brexit people who have made massive personal sacrifices over the last few months and this will cut through to them.

This is the classic "it didn't affect anyone else" scenario where he probably hasn't caused a problem individually but if everyone thought the same thing and did the same thing there would be total chaos. While what he did may be arguably reasonable there are thousands of people across the country who have had to care for children while suffering from the virus. Not to mention the number of people who have made even bigger sacrifices than that, accepting that they can't attend funerals of loved ones or visit dying relatives. Their other big problem here is the Professor Ferguson thing. The latest battle in the war between people who look at the actual facts and people who shout enough slightly varied, spun or "alternative" versions of the facts in the hope that it makes things murky enough to create plausible deniability for people to just give up. It's worked for them before. However, the prime minister and official advice is clearly on record and the guidelines around travelling to second home, staying at home under all circumstances if you're symptomatic and not leaving children with elderly relatives are explicit. Unless the media allow themselves to be completely cowed on this one I think the government will eventually have to admit defeat here. The harder they fight it, the bigger a defeat it will be unless they can face it down.

Don't get too excited. This will be an outrage for 48 hours, the government will refuse to comment or obfuscate and claim they'll look into it, throw a dead cat of some description on the table and keep Cummings out of the limelight for a couple of weeks until it's forgotten.

I'm a big saddo when it comes to 100%ing games so trying to actually 'catch em all' in an MMO with a bunch of other stuff to grind when I can't go out and play football or go to work as normal or go for a night out or visit my family properly or whatever else I usually spend my time on, it's a decent time sink.

I think they've been saying for a while about Vitamin D seeming to help. I talked about the obesity thing with my house mates today. One of them is a personal trainer and well up on his nutritional knowledge and he says the education about diet in the UK is appalling and outdated and he's not wrong. All that gets done in schools is mainly to do with food groups and having a balanced diet but nothing about calorie intake which is what's going to fuck you up weight wise. When I come to think of it anyone I know who even has a basic understanding of balancing your calorie intake has pretty much found it out for themselves. It's also only been about 10-15 years since they started sorting out the garbage served up in schools because it was going on when I was a teenager. You've got to hope that it has led to our generation having a better understanding of how not to become clinically obese. If you can say one thing about this virus it will have done wonders for the health of those who haven't been affected by it directly. I've never seen so many people out walking, running and cycling. Firstly it's the only excuse to get out of the house with all bars, clubs, shops and restaurants closed for so long and no live sport on the tele. Secondly plenty of parents who probably don't exercise that regularly have been forced to go out walking or cycling with their kids because the kids can't do it alone and can't meet their friends. I've also seen a few times parents who are clearly reasonably serious joggers out on runs with their kids tagging along with them when they'd usually be on their own. Trying to look on the positive side of the last few months. I live in a beautiful place and I've done a lot of walking recently in this weather and it's a treat to see so many families out together just enjoying each other's company and exploring some of the more obscure rocky beaches round the coast and stuff. Hopefully some of it stays when we go back to normal or normalish.

Distinctly possible. Either that or he was "just being sarcastic to see what you nasty, unhelpful reporters would do".

Yes, especially as the kids I faced were 11 and 12, not even 13.