• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Coronavirus

This should be interesting

Ahead of his appearance, Mr Cummings has tweeted a picture of what he says was a whiteboard shown to the prime minister on 14 March, with a suggested “plan B” for handling the pandemic.

The picture appears to show an estimate that “plan A” – the government’s initial strategy of mitigating but not supressing the peak of the pandemic – would lead to 4,000 deaths a day.

It adds that under "plan B," the government would be "more aggressive" in suppressing the virus the following week, with a "full lockdown" implemented before a "collapse" in the NHS.

upload_2021-5-26_9-54-49.gif

Science and Technology Committee chair Greg Clark starts by asking about Dominic Cummings' blog from March 2019 explained the risks of viruses in labs in Asia being able to kill people. He asks if, when China was sealing off its country, Mr Cummings was "alarmed".

Mr Cummings says "senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short" of what the "public expects during a crisis like this".

He says he is sorry for the "mistakes that were made" for those who have lost loved ones during the pandemic.

When it started in January 2020, "I did think, oh my goodness, is this it? Is this what people have been warning about all this time?" but he says the WHO and in other health organisations across the world, alarm bells were not ringing.

"I think it's obvious that many, many organisations failed," he says the Taiwanese government closed the borders and enacted a plan on New Years' Eve.

"The western world, including Britain, completely failed to see through the smoke."

He says he asked Matt Hanrooster where the country was in terms of scanning for the virus, resource operations planning for a pandemic on 25 January 2020.

Continuing, Cummings says he would also like to apologise for the fact he did not "follow up" and "push" on his initial concerns about the coronavirus in January.

He says people in Downing Street were told at the time that a pandemic had been repeatedly planned for and "everyone knows what to do".

He adds that it is "sort of tragic in a way" that although he was running teams to question received wisdom - red teams - on other topics, he did not do it in this area.

He says if he had, the government would have "figured out much earlier" that claims of great preparations being made were "completely hollow".

Cummings tells MPs he first raised coronavirus with the PM in the first half of January last year, but there was not “any sense of urgency" about the pandemic until the last week of February.

He adds that “lots of key people were literally skiing" during the middle of February.

He says that looking back, he “should have been hitting the panic button much in February than I was".

Cummings continues, "the government itself, and Number 10, were not on a war footing with this" until the end of February.

He says he "spent more and more" of his time dealing with the pandemic in February while the prime minister was on holiday.

"After the 30th January, it was not at all seen that there was going to be a pandemic," he states.

In January and February, he says he was "working very much on the science and technology agenda" and he spent a lot of time "trying to get to grips with the procurement system" which he describes as a "nightmare".
 
Cummings: I didn't advise PM to attend 'Cobra' meetings

Greg Clark asks about meetings of the government's Cobra emergency committee, which met several times during February - and asks Mr Cummings if he attended.

He tells the committee he is "not sure now" but he doesn't think he did, instead sending a government data scientist to sit in on the meetings, or instead holding smaller meetings with officials.

He says he hired a data scientist in No 10 - Ben Warner - who would attend the meetings along with the prime minister's personal secretary.

He says that a lot of Cobra meetings involve "going though Powerpoint slides and are not massively useful," adding that he did not advise the prime minister to attend either.

He also adds that he did not attend the meetings because he feared that information would be leaked to the media.

Mr Cummings tells the committee that in February, Boris Johnson regarded the coronavirus as a "scare story" and "the new swine flu".

He adds that several officials thought it would "not help serious planning" to have the PM expressing such views at meetings of Cobra.


Number 10 'completely hopeless' as a working environment

"The whole Number 10 building is completely hopeless as a working environment," Cummings says.

Greg Clark asks if Cummings attended any SAGE meetings.

Cummings says he attended "some of them" but not routinely. He says he got Ben Warner to attend all of the meetings.

Mr Clark asks if it was more important to attend these meetings "as an outsider".

Mr Cummings says that's why he sent Ben to attend to attend such meetings.
 
Cummings confirming what we knew - the government were not prepared. Acted late. And were distracted by Brexit.

When shi1 got real they were scrambling around desperate for a plan. Everything blew up around them. Smart governments identified the risk around Xmas - seeing what was happening in China - and they prepared. Our lot...they didn't get serious until mid-march. That is a fing joke and cost a lot of lives and billions upon billions. I know no one really knew how bad this pandemic would be, and most assumed it would be less serious than it was, but the government still has to prepare. It did not. We will pay the price for a long time.
 
"The whole Number 10 building is completely hopeless as a working environment," Cummings says.

Pretty damning. Can imagine No 10 with its nice new interior is quite conducive for a catch up over a whiskey and cigar.
 
Cummings confirming what we knew - the government were not prepared. Acted late. And were distracted by Brexit.

When shi1 got real they were scrambling around desperate for a plan. Everything blew up around them. Smart governments identified the risk around Xmas - seeing what was happening in China - and they prepared. Our lot...they didn't get serious until mid-march. That is a fing joke and cost a lot of lives and billions upon billions. I know no one really knew how bad this pandemic would be, and most assumed it would be less serious than it was, but the government still has to prepare. It did not. We will pay the price for a long time.

Yip. A few of us were saying it on here March and April 2020 but were mostly shouted down.

We were told that it was all down to unprecedented circumstances; they were doing all they could; that the opposition should shut up and support everything the government said; that covid should be allowed to rip through the population...and all the while, behind (and in front of) the scenes it was a complete fudging brickshow.

Who would have thought that the bloke who was a lazy, lying journalist who wasn't up to the job would have become a lazy, lying London Mayor who wasn't up to the job; and would have eventually become a lazy, lying PM who isn't up to the job?
 
Yip. A few of us were saying it on here March and April 2020 but were mostly shouted down.

We were told that it was all down to unprecedented circumstances; they were doing all they could; that the opposition should shut up and support everything the government said; that covid should be allowed to rip through the population...and all the while, behind (and in front of) the scenes it was a complete fudging brickshow.

Who would have thought that the bloke who was a lazy, lying journalist who wasn't up to the job would have become a lazy, lying London Mayor who wasn't up to the job; and would have eventually become a lazy, lying PM who isn't up to the job?

The thing is he's quite good at being likable, which seems to trump competence! The opposition have so many easy targets, but they are not as media savvy, and nothing much sticks, Boris blusters through masterfully. If you set out your stall as a likable bafoon, people are not too upset when you deliver the same! Likable trumps effectiveness.

Though to be fair the government learnt, planned and acted in advance for vaccines. Fair dues.
 
Cummings confirming what we knew - the government were not prepared. Acted late. And were distracted by Brexit.

When shi1 got real they were scrambling around desperate for a plan. Everything blew up around them. Smart governments identified the risk around Xmas - seeing what was happening in China - and they prepared. Our lot...they didn't get serious until mid-march. That is a fing joke and cost a lot of lives and billions upon billions. I know no one really knew how bad this pandemic would be, and most assumed it would be less serious than it was, but the government still has to prepare. It did not. We will pay the price for a long time.

Before you said you didn't believe a word he says?

Not 100% sure I believe everything said today, apparently he was quite dismissive of lockdowns really early on but then turned into one of the strongest lockdown people in government soon after when he saw what was coming - not sure what the timeframes around that were.
 
Before you said you didn't believe a word he says?

Not 100% sure I believe everything said today, apparently he was quite dismissive of lockdowns really early on but then turned into one of the strongest lockdown people in government soon after when he saw what was coming - not sure what the timeframes around that were.

Remember he edited his blog, trying to make out he predicted everything. He is a maverick and a know-all. I don't believe I said I don't believe a word he says. He's an excellent campaign strategist and he can think outside the box. If he was working for the Labour party now, they would be far stronger for example.
 
Back