Dominic Cummings has emerged triumphant — leaving his political enemies & media critics floundering
Dominic Cummings gambled all on his first soul-bearing performance as a husband, father and man of integrity. In my opinion he emerged triumphant, leaving his political enemies and media critics floundering. ⚠️ Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates Voters were able to see Cummings as the man I have known […]
Dominic Cummings gambled all on his first soul-bearing performance as a husband, father and man of integrity.
In my opinion he emerged triumphant, leaving his political enemies and media critics floundering.
Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates
Voters were able to see Cummings as the man I have known for 20 years – caring, thoughtful and profoundly decent.
Make no mistake – if he is now driven out of Downing Street, it will be a loss not just for Boris Johnson but for Britain and for Sun readers too.
At this moment of national crisis – as Brexit coincides with the most terrifying economic meltdown in living memory – we need the talents of a remarkable man.
If that sounds absurd, just consider these stunning achievements in a comparatively brief political career – each one supported by this newspaper.
But for Cummings in 2000, Tony Blair would have ditched the Pound without a referendum and plunged Britain into the disastrous single currency.
Without his “Take Back Control” campaign in 2016, the UK would almost certainly have remained a member of the EU now disintegrating before our eyes.
Boris Johnson is a brilliant campaigner, but without Cummings, none of this might have been possible.
Trevor Kavanagh
But for Cummings, Boris Johnson’s premiership would have been destroyed by Remainers led by ghastly Speaker Bercow who plotted to destroy the clear Referendum vote to Leave.
Without his election slogan “Let’s Get This Done” , there would have been no shock swing of Red Wall voters or the Boris landslide.
But for this so-called Svengali, a soft pro-EU coalition perhaps led by Jeremy Hunt would now be leading us by stealth back into the triumphant jaws of a doomed European Union.
Tories now clamouring for his head should be duly grateful.
Boris Johnson is a brilliant campaigner, but without Cummings, none of this might have been possible.
These are not trifling achievements.
They are remarkable triumphs against an unaccountable, unelected establishment elite powerfully voiced by the BBC.
This, in Dominic Cummings’ own vivid phrase, is The Blob.
Today this alliance of the “great and the good” is seeking revenge. They want Dom’s head on a skewer.
In the last 10 weeks, nothing exemplifies The Blob better than its handling of Coronavirus, the non-epidemic which has been allowed to drag this country into destitution.
A public inquiry will examine precisely how this country stumbled unprepared into a predictable – and predicted – health emergency.
The blame game is already under way.
But it is already clear the NHS bureaucracy was caught flat-footed.
Along with its blundering sidekick, Public Health England, it failed to provide frontline health staff – and likely Covid victims with the protection they deserved.
Under pressure, the NHS panicked and made the decision to clear all beds for incoming coronavirus victims – while disastrously shunting elderly infected patients into care homes.
PHE, the vast qango whose mission goal is to protect the nation from pandemics, failed abysmally to provide the testing needed as a first line of defence.
Voters were able to see Cummings as the man I have known for 20 years – caring, thoughtful and profoundly decent.
Trevor Kavanagh
Neither of these two bodies thought fit to build the necessary stockpile of Personal Protection Equipment, leaving frontline medical staff exposed to the virus.
Meanwhile, along came Bonking Boffin Neil Ferguson who created Lockdown panic with fantasy claims of half a million likely dead – a figure no other scientist has supported.
Indeed, highly qualified professionals including a Nobel prize-winning Stanford Professor of Chemistry, Michael Levitt, insist NO lives were saved by lockdown.
Sunetra Gupta, Oxford Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology, says the UK death rate from Coronavirus is 1-in-a-1000, with Lockdown an unnecessary “luxury”.
“I think there’s a chance we might have done better by doing nothing at all,” she says.
Prof Gupta echoes a growing view that Britain could return to normal tomorrow, opening pubs, nightclubs and festivals, without putting lives needlessly at risk.
“It is very dangerous to talk about lockdown without recognising the enormous costs that it has on other vulnerable sectors in the population.
“The truth is that lockdown is a luxury, and it’s a luxury that the middle classes are enjoying and higher income countries are enjoying at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable and less developed countries.
“It’s a very serious crisis.”
In the same circumstances I would have done the same and so, I suspect, would many readers whatever their political views.
Trevor Kavanagh
Prof Gupta is describing those Sun readers who will bear the brunt of the looming economic crash.
It is fair to say that but for “experts” like Ferguson – who has a long and costly history of disastrous predictions – Lockdown would have been lifted sooner and with less economic pain.
It is also true that while most people – including me – stuck rigidly to Downing Street rules, countless thousands have broken them by leaving home and visiting relatives.
Yes, Cummings and his wife – both hit by Coronavirus – broke the letter of the Lockdown law by driving their 4-year-old son 260 miles north to self-isolation in Durham.
In the same circumstances I would have done the same and so, I suspect, would many readers whatever their political views.
Some will rightly insist our leaders should do as they preach.
Others will be appalled by the curtain twitching informers who raced to spill the beans.
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To his credit – and now his cost – Dominic Cummings has never worried about upsetting his critics.
He has given his many enemies, some inside the Tory Party, the perfect stick to beat him with.
We should be careful before joining in this vendetta against a man who in his own unique way has spoken so effectively for the British people.
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