love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Also any money says Johnson bunks off PMQs next week.

Posting this Alex Massie piece in its entirety before someone at the Spectator inevitably has conniptions and takes an axe to it.

Most aspects of this present emergency are complex and resist easy solutions. Only a handful are elementary but one of these, and quite obviously so, is the Dominic Cummings affair. He must go and he must go now. There is no alternative, no other way out, no means by which this ship can be saved. The only question is the number of casualties Cummings will take with him.

Judged by the cabinet’s performance on social media this weekend, the answer to that question is also simple: all of them. It cannot be stressed too often that the government’s authority during this crisis is moral much more than it is legal. The lockdown measures were presented as a great national collective endeavour and they were accepted by the public on those terms too. Now it seems they were optional so long as, that is, you have the correct connections.

Advisors are, by definition, disposable. When they become the story, you cut them loose. That is the rule and it exists for a very good reason. Otherwise, attention soon shifts from the advisor to their masters. Right now, the government appears to believe Cummings is indispensable and, consequently, more important than the coherence and credibility of the government’s own messaging. That is quite a conclusion to reach and one unlikely to be shared by the general public.

This government now suffers from a credibility gap and the problem with such things is that, once opened and apparent, these gaps never close. The longer Cummings remains in post, the surer it is that the government will become, at best, a laughing stock.

It doesn’t even matter if what he did was appropriate or sensible or a reasonable means by which an awkward or complicated situation might best be managed. All that could be true and it wouldn’t change a thing. Perception is sometimes more important and here the perception is that there is one set of rules for government insiders and another, quite different, set of rules for everyone else. That is not just the perception, either, for it appears to be the reality too and will remain so, and be understood as such, for as long as Dominic Cummings remains in post. You may sympathise with his predicament – an unwell wife, a small child – all you like and it doesn’t change a thing.

Cabinet minister, mysteriously, are setting fire to their own credibility and authority in defending Cummings. There are millions of people across the country who have made considerable sacrifices, borne significant hardship, during this lockdown. They have done so for the greater good, recognising that they must do their little bit as part of a much greater endeavour. Weddings have been postponed; funerals have been left unattended; families have been separated. Little of this experience has been easy and much of it has been hard.

It is baffling that the government appears unable to see the damage this story will do to its already rocky reputation. Cummings’s judgement is one thing – and in the grander scheme of things, neither here nor there – but the longer this story rumbles on so the surer it is that attention will switch to the man who hired him. The point of a human shield is that you must be prepared to lose them if that proves necessary and this is something even Boris Johnson must be capable of grasping. It is his judgement that is now the issue.

The government’s authority during this crisis is moral much more than it is legal

The suspicion remains that somewhere, deep in their hearts, the cabinet’s collective reaction to this scandal – for such it is – is predicated on a still darker appreciation of an unwelcome political reality. Namely that the Prime Minister, whatever his other talents, is not actually up to the job of running the country in a moment such as this. I suspect they know this too and this leads them to a situation in which they decline to concede anything for fear that a single concession might topple the entire rickety edifice.

Perhaps I am mistaken about that but I can see no other logical explanation for the manner in which the government has reacted to this story. There is an old rule in crisis management stating that you should always do quickly what you will be forced to do eventually anyway. That means sacking Cummings now and it is astonishing that this appears beyond Downing Street.

You cannot – and again, this is elementary – run this crisis on a 'do as I say, not as I do' basis. And yet that is what the country is now expected to swallow. It is madness and a blunder of career-defining, perhaps even career-ruining, proportions.

A joke, then, albeit not an especially amusing one. Surely someone in Downing Street can appreciate this? This is a shipwreck and all the smart people who say this will blow over or fail to 'cut through' with the public are, I think, sorely mistaken. This is not a difficult story to understand, which is why it is so very powerful.

Again, and above all, this is a moral matter not a legal one and, by virtue of that, a much bigger and more profound affair. The Prime Minister has a simple choice: cut Dominic Cummings loose or be dragged down with him. This ought to be a pretty easy decision.

No PMQs this or next Weds - Whitsun recess.

Ah sorry, it just doesn't feel like Whitsun, what with the pandemic and everything.

I took one for the team here and had a look at the Soaraway Sun's website. They're leading on "BRITS ABROAD? Spain announces plans to welcome foreign tourists in July as hopes grow for Brit holidaymakers".
Followed by "'WHO CARES?' Dominic Cummings says he DIDN’T break lockdown with 260-mile trip to parents as Boris’s top aide faces calls to resign".
Then "EU'RE GOING NOWHERE France hits back at UK with 14-day isolation rule for Brits as European leaders rage at quarantine measures".
Then "SPREAD SLOWS UK coronavirus death toll grows by 282 in 24 hours – but rise is lowest Saturday total since March".
Then "END GAME Coronavirus study predicts exact date UK will be have no cases of Covid-19".
Then "SALES BONANZA Shoppers to enjoy biggest summer sales EVER with ‘tidal wave’ of bargains as retailers try to flog unsold stock".
Just so we know what the other side are getting in their news feed that isn't The Guardian.

Dan Davies has an interesting theory - that Johnson might be a lot more unwell than he’s letting on and Cummings is running the country on his behalf atm so is too valuable to be let go.

lads lads i think we might be saved

You know, I think the country is angry. This Cummings thing is never going to go away. Shut eyes are being forced open, reality is percolating through. Those voters who didn't re-elect a man of principle & probity, that very different Dominic - Grieve - must surely be waking up.

— A C Grayling #FBPE🕷 #Reform #Rejoin 🐟 (@acgrayling) May 23, 2020

I’d like to see ol doms cumming wriggle his way out of THIS jam

Could I have a link to the Dan Davies stuff please?

lol i didn't see the 🕷in grayling's handle when i read this tweet on twitter bcz (being a goth) i use night-mode

is it a reference to the law-lord lady's brooch (symbol of a hugely pyrrhic victory for the fbpes) or is it just there bcz he too uses night-mode and has forgotten abt it?

I would guess:

1) Johnson is much sicker than he admits and can't put the hours in

2) Cummings is covering and making decisions

3) if DC goes, there will have to be a big fight over who's in charge which nobody is ready for

— Dan Davies (@dsquareddigest) May 23, 2020

Given the hashtags I’d say it absolutely is a brooch self-own

(the full dd discussion is spread in various conversations)

lol bojo dying of plague is the only possible reason the lazy cunt can’t put the hours in

Those things could all be true but Dominic Cummings has a boss: it’s Matthew Kelly and he and his American wife Sarah are up to no good, forging links with far-right figures in the US and elsewhere.

Matt DC's Alex Massie post above is probably the best thing I have ever seen connected to the SPECTATOR.

I hope that many people will see it.

Those things could all be true but Dominic Cummings has a boss: it’s Matthew Kelly and he and his American wife Sarah are up to no good, forging links with far-right figures in the US and elsewhere.

Things have taken a sinister twist since Game For A Laugh ended.

the massie piece is -- to put it mildly -- hurriedly written

Hahaha excuse me, that should say Matthew ELLIOTT.

matthew kelly is famously a trot

Very good, Alex, but moral matters in a goverment headed by Boris Johnson?

They are clearly using the “look, you, the out of touch Westminster bubble can talk about this but the public don’t care” playbook which has worked so well since, eh, 2016 but if this cuts through he’s sunk.

And with 52% (lol) saying he should go in snap YouGov poll it’s not looking great on that front.

Can’t wait to get back to that amazing Rabb administration we had while Johnson was in hospital and Cummings in Durham.

i think massie also subscribes to the dan davies theory and boris is not the readership he is looking to

When I compared it to the expenses scandal I was making a serious point - regardless of the severity of the offence (duck houses lol) there appears to be nothing that enrages the British public more than the political class brazenly doing what they want when everyone else is being asked to make sacrifices.

The thing that makes this particularly bizarre is that this is exactly the sense of grievance that Cummings himself has been successfully exploiting for years. It's also why the typical Cummings playbook isn't going to work.

Dominic Cummings allegedly spotted wandering around Durham in mid-April. This would suggest he had already finished quarantine, returned to London, gone to Downing Street, then later returned back up north again. https://t.co/IssfiOjiL9

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) May 23, 2020

I give it 18 months until he's DG of the BBC

He must go and he must go now.

tend to think ppl say this when they really want something to happen but there is no way of making it happen so it comes out as this foot-stamping moralising howl of impotence. johnson has purged most of his enemies from the party & is only 6 months into his premiership. it's called an elective dictatorship bc it's so resilient and they've already got a siege mentality, going to have to be a lot going on behind the scenes for them to feel threatened enough to cave

desperate dans

dan dare>>>dan davies>>>dan hodges>>dan "iron you out" dyer>>>dan brown>>>dan snow>>the desperate dane

Yeah, he's toast now. He could just about brazen away going to his parents so they could look after his kid, but a nice day trip to Barnard Castle too, that's not going to cut it.

Dan Worsley

Now talk of multiple trips in the area. Dude really could be responsible for the outbreak there.

in awe at keeping this back for a full 24 hours while everyone showed their asses defending him over the first story. god tier fishing https://t.co/hcxzACFXUM

— Stan The Golden Boy (@tristandross) May 23, 2020

I have to take a break from Twitter as the hope that any of this is going to change shit is fucking heartbreaking

the footage of him leaving the house is interesting because it made me realise how this particular scandal has denuded him of his usual appeal which is of culture war lightning rod. usually when he comes out sneering at the journalists he's essentially leave sneering at remain and so buoyed by the culture war he's done so much to create, when he leaves sneering at this he's sneering at everyone and so it's no longer a proxy sneer at my uppity neighbor who can't accept she lost the referendum it's directed at me and how fucking dare he

Really? He seems to be keeping that on message

Asked if he was going to consider resigning following accusations he broke lockdown rules, Dominic Cummings said "obviously not."

He added "You guys are probably as right about that as you are about Brexit, remember how right you were?"

More: https://t.co/GnNiZQOga6 pic.twitter.com/oSLZwyxy7v

— SkyNews (@SkyNews) May 23, 2020

Lame. Again Trumplike.

Yeah ico otm - he is trying that tactic in the video but it is going to fail. Leavers have also been following the rules (mostly).

Of course he isn't going to resign, the question is whether he becomes so much of a liability that he gets fired and that depends on Johnson.

read some fucking Tetlock you clueless cunts isn't cutting it anymore!

I don't think I'd really believed he held quite this much authority until now and I suspect a lot of people are having the same realisation

Johnson’s party position not that strong - ratings were already sinking before this.

The galaxy brain take is that he leaked this himself to ensure everyone knows he's in charge.

I’d like to see ol doms cumming wriggle his way out of THIS jam

His party political position among Tory MPs isn't that strong but if he is forced to go now it looks like THEY'VE fucked up. It's exactly what keeps mediocre out of their depth executives in jobs for a year minimum.

also it re-ignites the war for succession

Telling use of 'probably' in that Cummings quote.

lol lashing out at our...famously pro-Remain media

“We were simply keen to visit Durham, with its famous castle and cathedral which has a 66m spire” pic.twitter.com/7UHBslbOOt

— Andrew McQuillan (@ajmcq1993) May 23, 2020

I didn't say it was working, just that he was still working it.

I'm closer to stet than t.ross here - this is the thing that will let others go "oh now this is too much"

(also of course this retroactive "you don't have to follow the rules if you're being sensible or you really really want to" will get a lot of people killed and damaged)

lmao xpost