Yesterday was I believe a watershed moment in the British Union. Dominic Cummings yesterday gave a masterclass exposing the dysfunctional nature of UK governance.It is something many of us have believed for decades. On Wednesday, 26th May, 2021, finally an insider confirmed the suspicions of many. Mr Cummings was questioned by the Health and Science select committees, for their inquiry into “lessons learnt” on the government’s response to the pandemic.
His testimony was damning of the Prime Minister, as well as the English Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. From the outset Cummings displayed his lack of respect for the conventions of Westminster. He arrived dressed more like the guy that works your IT Help desk than a slick London Spad. A hooded jacket, baseball cap, trainers and an open neck white shirt. Not for him his best bib and tucker, or maybe this is his best. It certainly cocked a snoop at pompous outdated Westminster traditions.
His evidence, when it began must have sent shock waves through Number 10. That would have been nothing in comparison to the heat being felt by Matt Hancock the hapless English Health Secretary. After yesterday’s evidence session I doubt either Johnson or Hancock will be around for long.
At a marathon seven-hour evidence session, the former Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister painted a picture of policy failure, delay and a government that had no coherent plan for handling a pandemic.
He told MPs: “The truth is that senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its government in a crisis like this.” His most damning of comments was, “Tens of thousands of people died, who didn’t need to die.” That alone, if believed by the committee of MPs should be enough to finish off Johnson and Hancock.
Cummings didn’t just leave it at that he went on to give more detail.He claimed Boris Johnson had told him he liked to be surrounded by “chaos” in Downing Street, because it meant everyone had to look to the PM “to see who is in charge” Asked if he thought Mr Johnson was a “fit and proper person” to get the UK through the pandemic, Mr Cummings replied: “No.” I always thought it was, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, it seems though that it is nothing to a political advisor sacked!
He told the committee that although Johnson had been extremely ill himself with Covid he was reluctant to have any sort of lockdown. He was more concerned on the financial implications to the economy than the health issues for the public. Cummings told MPs that Johnson regretted ordering the first lockdown – and when he ordered the second, he vowed to never introduce a third.
Nor did Boris Johnson ever want tough border controls to prevent cases of coronavirus being brought in from overseas, Dominic Cummings claimed.
The Prime Minister’s former adviser said Mr Johnson wanted to be like the mayor from the film Jaws, who kept the beaches open to protect the local economy, despite the threat posed by a killer shark.Mr Cummings said the policy was “madness” because while there were restrictions imposed domestically from the end of March 2020, there were still travellers coming in from infected areas throughout the world.
“Fundamentally, there was no proper border policy because the Prime Minister never wanted a proper border policy,” he told MPs.
He confirmed Johnson saying, “let the bodies pile high” when discussing a third lockdown. SNP MP Carol Monaghan asked him: “Did you hear [Johnson] say, ‘let the bodies pile high in their thousands’ or ‘it’s only killing eighty year olds’?”
Cummings replied: “There’s been a few different versions of these stories knocking around. There was a version of it in the Sunday Times, which was not accurate. But the version that the BBC reported was accurate.”
This damning inditement of the Prime Minister’s words and actions was nothing in comparison to his scathing remarks about Matt Hancock, accusing him of “criminal, disgraceful behaviour that caused serious harm.” Cummings suggested there was at least 15 different occasions when actions or lies of Hancock should have resulted in his instant dismissal from post.
On the matter of Care Home deaths Cummings suggested that Hancock had informed both the Prime Minister and him that “people will be tested before they went back to care homes” this just was not true. Subsequent government claims about putting a “shield” around care homes were “complete nonsense,” he said.
These revelations, of course, do not come as a shock to many of us. We have long seen the total incompetence and sheer bloody mindedness of Westminster. As I approach my three score and ten I can only ever remember Westminster staggering from one crisis to the next. They keep talking about learning lessons, but never do and the same mistakes keep being repeated over and over again.It is always though the ordinary citizens that face the worst outcomes, not the morons that are making all the decisions.
There will no doubt be a Public Inquiry into the entire Covid disaster. Like Chilcott, Levenson, Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday, Grenfell, Contaminated Blood, Panamanian Banking Investigation, nobody will be held accountable or at least nobody from the establishment or Westminster. Some junior underling might be thrown to the wolves to appease the braying media.
As I suggested in an earlier article Boris Johnson will be removed when Murdoch and the other press barons so decide. The next few days will tell us what the men in grey suits and the money men in London think. Be assured what you or I think is of no relevance to those in charge in London.
What of Scotland in all this? Well Nicola Sturgeon did buy into and promote the 4 Nations strategies, all of them! She and her then Justice Secretary referred to the protestors trying to close the Scottish/English border as racists. Nicola Sturgeon said: “I agree with Humza Yousaf’s comments about racism. People who protest at the border do not speak for me. They were not there on my behalf.”
With hindsight and according to Dominic Cummings evidence and SAGE the protestors at the border were absolutely correct in their actions and it was Sturgeon and Humza that were the ones in the wrong.
If tens of thousands died unnecessarily in the UK as Cummings opines then Scotland with its 4 nation participation has to accept that far from handling the pandemic well our First Minister has failed Scotland abysmally. 7,666 Covid deaths in Scotland attest to that. The same has to be said about the horrific number of deaths in Care Homes in Scotland. The truth is in comparison to our nearest neighbours with similar populations and demographic Scotland has fared badly.
We need to stop pretending Scotland did so much better than England or indeed any comparable country. We have failed badly, and the reason for that is we are tied to a dysfunctional incompetent Westminster government and Ms Sturgeon agreed to let them make all the critical and we now know incorrect calls on handling the pandemic. Only her communication skills separate her from the incompetent idiotic Johnson.
Our First Minister has been repeating throughout the entire recent election and since that we cannot move on towards Independence until such times as we are fully recovered from the effects of Covid. What she has carefully avoided is defining what she means by fully recovered. Does she mean from the illness itself or the economic impact of the pandemic? Whichever it is, Cummings evidence to the committee yesterday shows that depending on a Boris Johnson Tory Government or indeed any English government to plan and execute a recovery plan for Scotland would be a gross dereliction of duty by any Scottish leader.
Indeed, yesterday highlights more than ever the urgent need for Scotland to secede from this dysfunctional, corrupt, incompetent sham in London. No more delays First Minister. No more putting Gender Issues before Scotland’s Independence. Set things in motion immediately or get out of the way and put someone else in charge that realises every day extra we spend in this Union Scottish lives are lost and valuable recovery time is wasted.
Independence Now!
I watched classic Dom yesterday when working at home and l had to smile at what was a very skilfull act of revenge against the Johnston cabal .The fact that he appears to have kept all his WhatsApp messages is even worse for them .l have little time for Cummings but the Tories do assassination so well .
Nic’s fans will have all the excuses ready. “What else could she do”, “Hands tied”, “Reserved matters” etc, etc.
What was needed was someone who could stand up to WM and closed our borders – but then, we know that Sturgeon and co have no such desire. She has proved to those of us who aren’t blinded by misguided loyalty that the Scots people are not her first priority. We just need the others to wake up and, unfortunately, they appear to be perpetual somnambulists.
Sorry about the second post Roddy on an unrelated subject ( or maybe not ) but the podcast about the content of the parts of the curriculum for excellence currently being punted by the Edinburgh perverts left me gobsmacked —thanks for highlighting this
And still they fly in unchecked from hotpots, and it’s open season for idiots to go abroad on holiday. Well played nicla. We need leadership, vision and our freedom to move forward as an Independent nation, far from the tory infestation. Unfortunately, we have the cult of nicla and her green henchmen to contend with first.
After death, the doctor.
“Only her communication skills separate her from the incompetent idiotic Johnson.”
These are only worthwhile possessing if the substance of the underlying information is accurate, honest and truthful.
Otherwise the person imparting the message is just another snake-oil salesman.
I didn’t watch the performance yesterday – mainly because I found his accent difficult to understand. So, great to read the many highlights this morning.
Sturgeon certainly got the Scottish/English border episode completely. wrong. Many were very angry about her reaction to those wise protestors who were trying to keep us safe by closing the border. I have a clear memory of a lorry driver shouting over to me at the fuel station:
“THEY SHOULD CLOSE THE BORDER! There was general agreement as he was just one of the many concerned folk in the North.
Independence isn’t going to happen anytime soon. If you think logically about what would have to happen immediately upon Scotland regaining its independence a first item would be the holding of elections. It would be impossible for any political party with an HQ and funding from a thrid country to have any representation in the newly independent Scottish parliament. Perhaps, the setting up of new parties would actually happen months before the day of indy, in preparation for the elections. Ask yourself which party absolutely has the most to lose in such elections. Ask yourself which party will have fulfilled it’s core policy and now be unneccessary.
Nicola Sturgeon has become a a Governor. Independence is the only thing which threatens her position. 7 years, now heading for 12 years as the queen of Scotland, with her husband as prince consort ensuring that there is no route for a challenge from her courtiers. What would you do in her shoes?
His approval rating is still around 48% it seems whatever he messes up the voters don’t bother
But you have to bear in mind just how tiny a proportion of the Scottish voting electorate the SNP members are numbers-wise. A drop in the indy bucket. Or no drop in the indy bucket at all, if their actions in recent years are to be believed.
How will Sturgeon react to all this? She will either continue with her “we must wait till the epidemic is over and it’ll be me who decides that” strategy or she’ll turn round 180 degrees and suddenly become radically pro-indy in actions as opposed to just words in order to cover up her four-nation mistakes.
Sturgeon should be finished after his testimony but my prediction is that no one will be sacked or resign. My theory is that the public have just given up. They don’t have the capacity or time to take in the amount of deception and corruption that is happening. You have to do research and that takes a lot of effort and time.
NS should resign because
1. Lynch who was still talking about herd immunity on March 10th
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/scotland/51892264
‘But the advice today is just as it was – go about your business as normal, pick up your kids from school, hug your granny, go shopping and don’t buy too much soap because everybody needs some.’
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/scots-health-chief-urges-people-to-take-coronavirus-seriously?top
16th March
‘he explained the government’s reasoning behind the lack of restrictions on mass-gatherings and not shutting down schools. “We are balancing the care of the public with the care of individuals,” he said. “We believe that we’re following the science, we believe that we’re doing the right thing.”‘
“My wife went to the Stereophonics concert. I would have gone myself”
https://www.irishmirror.ie/tv/coronavirus-piers-morgan-rages-after-21699334
14 April
‘Jason Leitch said the story about the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) from Gompels was “rubbish”’ had to apologise 2 days later (check out him posing for photo)
https://archive.vn/SH48v#selection-1253.3-1253.113
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/04/14/has-professor-and-commander-of-the-order-of-the-british-empire-jason-leitch-let-his-mask-slip/
2. Late lockdowns (see above) only a little before England both times
3. Opening for Christmas. This created a third wave and allowed worse spread of new variants. A lot of people have died from this third wave. See the trajectory without opening up for Christmas (even adjusting for a fair amount of non-compliance. Now we (Scotland) are going into a fourth wave, yesterday the cases were higher than at any point in first wave.
https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/
We have done a lot better than England in numbers (140 v 199 deaths per million) but this is not due to Sturgeon as she has done nothing different from Johnson. It is more probable that it is due to a better NHS (which must be founded on the pre Sturgeon era). But as Roddy says, compared to other countries we have done terribly.
Oh and of course
5. Close the border.
My first indication that the SNP was a Sturgeon cult, including i am afraid Talking Up Scotland, was when they claimed she had no power to close the border. Of course she did. Even airports would be in effect be closed if people weren’t allowed to travel from the airport as it is not essential travel. She did close the border eventually using this travel restriction rule but i don’t remember any of the cult saying ‘woops, look she just did what we said she couldn’t’. Sturgeon could have closed the border any time she liked and those who claimed she couldn’t are living in an illusion. It would have also been a great fight with WM even if it had been true but NS is a coward.
How’s the Alba Party coming along?
Lomax, the refugee from WGD ( Wheest Central). Don’t wander too far from WGD you might have to deal with the truth about Sturgeon and her gang of crooks.
People will ask “What else could the FM have done?”.
And the answer is – we should never have been in this situation.
If the SNP leadership had not been procrastsinating over holding our independence referendum since Brexit, we would not have been tied to Westminster’s idiotic policies.
We would also have had control over our own borders and airports.
That is the reason for their failure. That is how independence ties into our peoples’ wellbeing..
And there is no sign that is about to change.
On the 8th of February HM Government we’re running full page adverts in the Scottish Press advising that HM Government and the NHS were
“ well prepared to deal with this virus “ and that
“ to protect yourself and others “….
* always carry a tissue to catch your coughs and sneeze
* bin the tissue and to kill germs
* wash hands with soap and water with …..
“ this being the best way to slow down the spread of any germs, including Coronavirus “
These adverts were then followed up days later with similar adverts before the SG then had their logo and the Scottish NHS logos added. Being concerned about what I was reading about China and elsewhere I at the time wrote to both my MP and MSP to express my concerns about what was being publicly communicated.
But of course we weren’t well prepared nor was carrying a hankie the best way to stop the spread because only a matter of weeks later the country collapsed into an emergency lock down.
I don’t know about other folks but these adverts show the utter incompetence and lying deceit of not just Westminster but also our local pretend Scottish Government. They also show the utter gormless grubbed populace that we have who bought into this crap, and who today don’t really give a damn about what happened.
I’m with Nicola, trans rights, the Hate Crime Bill, and now an COVID recovery to fight. That’s the message to the la la’s now. And tough for all those who got boxed up and planted. Who cares, damn few unless it was a relative or close friend of yours who died.
So go back to the Scottish newspapers, and radio ads of the 8th of February 2020 and marvel at how, like sheep, so many were beguiled into the abattoir of death.
Ah well, at least many of the Tory chums made millions in the jamboree for the well connected to supply PPE too late. Tip tip for the Tories, and their Scottish side kick the COVID Queen herself.
No one in Britain made any sense with the lockdown policies, only local populations were in lockdown
Planes were still flying, bringing in people whom were known to have come from covid country’s,
Prince Charles came up to Scotland during covid and lockdown, and got tested positive, his son and his wife, came to Scotland, people were coming up on holiday in caravans, Boris himself had a strange holiday in Scotland with his girlfriend camping. And he was caught travelling more than three miles from his home on a bike,
Cummings was testing his eyesight miles away from home,
Immigrants were still coming into Britain via the channel crossing going untested for covid.
Nicola sturgeon wouldn’t close our borders any more than England closed there’s.
We are and island, not even joined to another country for goodness sake, if any country could or should have had absolute control over covid 19 you would think it it would be an island surrounded by sea,
Boris was still shaking hands in meetings with other people from outside Britain and recently in contact in a meeting with India officials, whom tested positive for covid, now Hancock And friends are shouting about an India variant of covid in Britain. And possibly more lockdowns for the very people that live here and obeyed all the rules. But only us.
The whole covid scenario only seems to have been applied to populations and the citizens.
Any one else had a free pass, very damaging to our businesses and infrastructure,
We need to have independence so we have more control of our borders, airports and shipping,
But we also need to be rid of a husband and wife team running our country as if they were imperial monarchy. Not listening to anyone and bringing problems to its people under the hate crime bill and gender discrepancies, and whom have wandered so far away from the what most of the Scottish people want, independence first and foremost. The rest we can remedy or immensely improve on.
We have not had the ability or inspiration under lockdown that definitely divided our country.
I personally would like to see more Scottish conversations on dissecting the treaty of the union, and facts talked about as to wether ANY sovereign Scot was ever asked to join the treaty of the union in 300 years,
To the best of my knowledge this has never been put as a question to the sovereign Scots,
I would particularly like to see evidence, documentation and facts.
Well I’m not convinced this from Dominic will go down well https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nicola-sturgeons-babbling-made-a-sham-of-cobra-meetings-says-dominic-cummings-bp8zvr7rc?fbclid=IwAR0Ytu-9wh2BMo4c-ZCKx0d68hpttCesD9Y_zrMMhkTfx9z-E82WflhrAXc
Or this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-57259868?fbclid=IwAR1u8YJ8GnhTpivaZoBsxj-d1vO66lGFxUaQ_yu9RXXsdRk5_03JG6mEUA0
Sturgeons favourite Dentist didn’t do a very good job either. https://youtu.be/O1siJcR57AI?t=420
Nicola Sturgeon said: “I agree with Humza Yousaf’s comments about racism. People who protest at the border do not speak for me. They were not there on my behalf.” I have always found Ms. Sturgeon’s pompous, solipsistic narcissism utterly risible. She seems to see herself as some sort of literal physical representation of Scotland, in charge of everything at all times. Note the language: “…do not speak for me…not there on my behalf.” Not there on SCOTLAND’S behalf, there on STURGEON’S behalf. What a venomous wee Messiah Complex weirdo this woman is. And as for the other narcissist Yousaf, well, they both owe the border protesters an apology. Not that they will ever get one, mind you. Narcissists are never wrong. Especially when it comes to mere (sneer) proles.
It is not true to say the Scottish death rate from covid is no different compared to the UK rate. You were at lest 30% less likely to die if you lived in Scotland.
How about the examples of Norway and Denmark?
Do you think our death rate was down because, Sturgeon hogged the cameras every day?
What do you put it down to I would love to hear.
The average Scot does not understand that the death rates in similar sized European countries like Norway and Denmark were hugely less than the death rate in Scotland.
Fed a diet of shite First Minister, and I use that word appropriately, they boxed em up and buried or cremated them with effectively no one in attendance whilst the First Minister promoted herself on a tissue of lies.
But you know what Roddy, maybe the public, the gullible public, are happy with their diet of crap from people like a Sturgeon. Seems very much so.
And I see you never got an answer to your question about why Norway and Denmark had hugely less deaths than Scotland.
That’s us average Scots put in our place !
Lomax, it is clear that your place is on WGD licking Sturgeons high heels.
The voters knew all about Johnson when they handed him a landslide victory at the election. I do not think that these revelations will change his popularity because they do not care as long as they are not affected. Nothing short of a hike in income tax, VAT or welfare benefits would trouble them. We may have our rump of the Johnson cult here but popular they are not. I will not damn a whole nation but that country is just foreign to me. Nothing wrong with being foreign unless they rule your country and believe that a desire for independence is just Anglophobia. What an Anglocentric view that independence is ‘leaving’ and not positively striding to new global dignity.
You say that ‘..after yesterday’s evidence session [that you] doubt either Johnson or Hancock will be around for long,’ but then later go on to say, about the invevitable inquiry, that ‘nobody will be held accountable or at least nobody from the establishment or Westminster. Some junior underling might be thrown to the wolves to appease the braying media.’ Is this surely not a contradiction? I know which I believe. I think there will be no resignations, no sackings, or anything else. It will just be put down to a ‘force majeure’ or some ******** like that!
Blair lied his way to taking the UK to war but people still voted for him and Brown in subsequent elections.
The electorate seem to have a capacity for voting for political leaders who kill a lot of people.