I’ll post below thoughts on giving evidence and other things from the Inquiry. I’ll keep hacking this page around for a few days… UPDATED 27/11 Here is an interesting piece on the details of the west's artillery debacle. At some point people will ask with incredulity how the west could have thought this was a winning combination:
so much wittering about hurty ****. also re slowing down was the court reporter from Fiverrr or something-well done for keeping your cool and coming across as far more incisive than the KC.
A few comments not so much on Dom's testimony but to set the record straight(er) from someone working in critical care and anaesthesia during the pandemic.
1. The Nordic experience. Apart from booze, the Nordics are bloody healthy. We in the UK on the other hand are not, which explains a lot of the difference in Covid outcomes. They're also small population, low population density countries.
2. Plenty of middle aged, working people ended up on ventilators in ITU. Some of them survived. Not having a lockdown would have been disastrous - critical care units would have been (more) overwhelmed and deaths at home would have been commonplace. It's instructive to compare Covid with the 'flu epidemic of the sixties. People died at home and the NHS didn't collapse because, ironically, there was no critical care to speak of and there were barely any antibiotics. Covid caused a crisis in health care because modern medicine could actually do something.
3. Regarding the condescending attitude to the Italians in early 2020. I'm just as guilty and felt that we were bound to cope so much better. It wasn't until we started getting the message from Italian colleagues in critical care that we started to bang on the door of management to tell them a shit storm was coming. Credit to them, they took us seriously. When Covid reached the south east, again a little smugness (I work in the Northwest) took place in my heart thinking those middle class skiing southerners' problems wouldn't reach us. Ah, well...
4. I think it was the FA and the Rugby authorities unilaterally cancelling games that tipped Boris into lockdown. It certainly came across that way after the Cheltenham debacle.
Dom I showed my mum some of the clips where they read out your insults in the inquiry. She has now started using the phrase “fuckpig” all the time hahaha
Definately noticed MSM yesterday going for a lot of clickbait headlines, w/ info we ALREADY knew from Doms 7hr session w/ health & science committee + tweets etc.
Instead they focused on relationship disputes between ministers/PM, bad language etc, media doesn't seems to want to admit/understand that government is broken so keep treating Dom like he's some alien outsider.
Saw a clip of Dom getting out of a taxi to enter enquiry building and a journo just yells 'How's your eyesight Mr Cummings? Was Boris the right person for the job?'. Terrible questions that they should ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO!
You said it like you saw it. What more can one want. You lived it, and you were circumspect enough to take notes and keep them for future use. They obviously hate being called to account and hate even more the fact that you can prove their inadequacies.
More than anything, your session with the KC reminded me of a 1960s Lenny Bruce obscenity trial. Spiky character sees through society's charades, calls out the crap & identifies logical strategies that actually work is scapegoated by smooth Establishment lawyer as 'everything that's wrong with society today'. The inevitable, repetitive, clumsy, theatrical elephant trap finale of 'Bar-nard Carstle' was a low-rent insult to viewers' intelligence.
I thought the aside, which most people will have missed, from Dame Heather Hallet just before a break was entertaining - "Like me, Mr Cummings speaks quickly". A little rebuke to Hugo Keith and his incessant "slow down" schoolmasterisms?
Excellent job on staying cool under hostile questioning. Your apology for your language will be used against you forevermore, though. Ceding the moral high ground to these fools is what gives them authority to judge your actions.
I thought much of the tenor of the questioning was complete arse. Even if it were relevant, being rude about a woman is not evidence of misogyny and not worth talking about in the context of so much avoidable death.
Also absolutely everything focused on the period between the kind of wow-northern-Italy-is-in-the-shit period and up until about two weeks into the first UK lockdown. I'd like to know more about decision-making which occurred later on. Such as when we found that the thing did not transmit through surfaces, or outdoors, contrary to 'facts'. Or when it became clear that quite a large proportion of the popn had nothing to fear from infection. At the time it occurred to me that the UK was slow to react to new findings and bin restrictions on outdoor activity, for instance. The point being that most of the public worked this out before the govt did and behaved accordingly, making a nonsense of the rules. Anecdotally speaking of course but from approx late summer 2020 onwards I don't know anyone who didn't break rules to have, say, friends in their garden for a few beers once we knew that covid could not transmit outdoors. The rules did not allow this but it was a totally safe activity.
There of course remains absolutely zero seriousness from the commentariat about our systems being bust irrespective of who's in charge.
I wished your interrogator was less grandstanding over tabloid stories we already knew (and have probably made our minds up about) and a whole lot more forensic about things we did not know. Everybody and his dog has already had their say about Barnard Castle etc. and here, as in other places, he was merely rude to no effect at all, not even enabling any further explanation. How can that be proper enquiry? As my comments here show I strongly disagree with you about masses of stuff but on this trivial matter, I could well imagine doing exactly the same --namely, while recuperating from an illness, taking my family out on a short hop to make sure I would next day be able to manage a long one. It makes perfect sense in any real context but. when blown up in public for amusement value, just became a typically British tee-hee seaside joke. Once the exaggerated comedy spin has been applied, it is indelible. So why on earth was the enquiry wasting its time on it? Proper incisive knife-like questions might well have made a serious impact as for example the rather more new information that Johnson denies he knew of your trip. This was fresher and more loaded (even if the denier has form) yet it was not even put to you, was it?
I know you check your comments section more than your email so I'll ask here.
In August you proposed a "start up" party to replace the Conservatives. During this time I (and others) have created a discord based on this idea. We've been putting a preliminary team together and we have already spent a great deal of effort in coordinating a strategy and brand. We're examining seats on a localised level and are thinking of ways to get AI/Moral Narratives built into our tactics.
Unfortunately, there's things we lack. Like finances or a big name to create publicity or even just a high powered figure who knows what they are doing to check us over. This is where we need your help.
Are you in actual fact, going through with The Start Up Party at all? If not can you say so that time can be spent attracting a different big name (feelers have been extended to Rory Stewart). If so, can you please make time to interact further so we can accelerate our timetable and get something solid going forward? If not, can you say so that we can find another big name to help front the operation?
Cummings: “These people have lied and made decisions that have killed thousands of people”.
QC: “Yeah but you can’t be rude about them.”
well done on yesterday DC, i must say it didn't reveal very much that we didn't already know, plus the QC didn't see to like you
so much wittering about hurty ****. also re slowing down was the court reporter from Fiverrr or something-well done for keeping your cool and coming across as far more incisive than the KC.
A few comments not so much on Dom's testimony but to set the record straight(er) from someone working in critical care and anaesthesia during the pandemic.
1. The Nordic experience. Apart from booze, the Nordics are bloody healthy. We in the UK on the other hand are not, which explains a lot of the difference in Covid outcomes. They're also small population, low population density countries.
2. Plenty of middle aged, working people ended up on ventilators in ITU. Some of them survived. Not having a lockdown would have been disastrous - critical care units would have been (more) overwhelmed and deaths at home would have been commonplace. It's instructive to compare Covid with the 'flu epidemic of the sixties. People died at home and the NHS didn't collapse because, ironically, there was no critical care to speak of and there were barely any antibiotics. Covid caused a crisis in health care because modern medicine could actually do something.
3. Regarding the condescending attitude to the Italians in early 2020. I'm just as guilty and felt that we were bound to cope so much better. It wasn't until we started getting the message from Italian colleagues in critical care that we started to bang on the door of management to tell them a shit storm was coming. Credit to them, they took us seriously. When Covid reached the south east, again a little smugness (I work in the Northwest) took place in my heart thinking those middle class skiing southerners' problems wouldn't reach us. Ah, well...
4. I think it was the FA and the Rugby authorities unilaterally cancelling games that tipped Boris into lockdown. It certainly came across that way after the Cheltenham debacle.
5. I hated the clapping.
Dom I showed my mum some of the clips where they read out your insults in the inquiry. She has now started using the phrase “fuckpig” all the time hahaha
You are still box office DC!
bloody hell just saw the eye pic. get well soon .
Definately noticed MSM yesterday going for a lot of clickbait headlines, w/ info we ALREADY knew from Doms 7hr session w/ health & science committee + tweets etc.
Instead they focused on relationship disputes between ministers/PM, bad language etc, media doesn't seems to want to admit/understand that government is broken so keep treating Dom like he's some alien outsider.
Saw a clip of Dom getting out of a taxi to enter enquiry building and a journo just yells 'How's your eyesight Mr Cummings? Was Boris the right person for the job?'. Terrible questions that they should ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO!
Dom
You said it like you saw it. What more can one want. You lived it, and you were circumspect enough to take notes and keep them for future use. They obviously hate being called to account and hate even more the fact that you can prove their inadequacies.
D
More than anything, your session with the KC reminded me of a 1960s Lenny Bruce obscenity trial. Spiky character sees through society's charades, calls out the crap & identifies logical strategies that actually work is scapegoated by smooth Establishment lawyer as 'everything that's wrong with society today'. The inevitable, repetitive, clumsy, theatrical elephant trap finale of 'Bar-nard Carstle' was a low-rent insult to viewers' intelligence.
Luke Skywalker: He used the Death Star to destroy Alderaan and killed billions of people.
British Mainstream media: How do you explain calling Darth Vader a fuckpig, Mr Skywalker?
I thought the aside, which most people will have missed, from Dame Heather Hallet just before a break was entertaining - "Like me, Mr Cummings speaks quickly". A little rebuke to Hugo Keith and his incessant "slow down" schoolmasterisms?
Excellent job on staying cool under hostile questioning. Your apology for your language will be used against you forevermore, though. Ceding the moral high ground to these fools is what gives them authority to judge your actions.
I thought much of the tenor of the questioning was complete arse. Even if it were relevant, being rude about a woman is not evidence of misogyny and not worth talking about in the context of so much avoidable death.
Also absolutely everything focused on the period between the kind of wow-northern-Italy-is-in-the-shit period and up until about two weeks into the first UK lockdown. I'd like to know more about decision-making which occurred later on. Such as when we found that the thing did not transmit through surfaces, or outdoors, contrary to 'facts'. Or when it became clear that quite a large proportion of the popn had nothing to fear from infection. At the time it occurred to me that the UK was slow to react to new findings and bin restrictions on outdoor activity, for instance. The point being that most of the public worked this out before the govt did and behaved accordingly, making a nonsense of the rules. Anecdotally speaking of course but from approx late summer 2020 onwards I don't know anyone who didn't break rules to have, say, friends in their garden for a few beers once we knew that covid could not transmit outdoors. The rules did not allow this but it was a totally safe activity.
There of course remains absolutely zero seriousness from the commentariat about our systems being bust irrespective of who's in charge.
I wished your interrogator was less grandstanding over tabloid stories we already knew (and have probably made our minds up about) and a whole lot more forensic about things we did not know. Everybody and his dog has already had their say about Barnard Castle etc. and here, as in other places, he was merely rude to no effect at all, not even enabling any further explanation. How can that be proper enquiry? As my comments here show I strongly disagree with you about masses of stuff but on this trivial matter, I could well imagine doing exactly the same --namely, while recuperating from an illness, taking my family out on a short hop to make sure I would next day be able to manage a long one. It makes perfect sense in any real context but. when blown up in public for amusement value, just became a typically British tee-hee seaside joke. Once the exaggerated comedy spin has been applied, it is indelible. So why on earth was the enquiry wasting its time on it? Proper incisive knife-like questions might well have made a serious impact as for example the rather more new information that Johnson denies he knew of your trip. This was fresher and more loaded (even if the denier has form) yet it was not even put to you, was it?
Dear Dominic Cummings,
I know you check your comments section more than your email so I'll ask here.
In August you proposed a "start up" party to replace the Conservatives. During this time I (and others) have created a discord based on this idea. We've been putting a preliminary team together and we have already spent a great deal of effort in coordinating a strategy and brand. We're examining seats on a localised level and are thinking of ways to get AI/Moral Narratives built into our tactics.
Unfortunately, there's things we lack. Like finances or a big name to create publicity or even just a high powered figure who knows what they are doing to check us over. This is where we need your help.
Are you in actual fact, going through with The Start Up Party at all? If not can you say so that time can be spent attracting a different big name (feelers have been extended to Rory Stewart). If so, can you please make time to interact further so we can accelerate our timetable and get something solid going forward? If not, can you say so that we can find another big name to help front the operation?
Please reply