In a functioning democracy, this should have ended a political career

[Scooter]

[Big RR]

Now who does that sound like? Kind of like a bad dream I've been trying to forget, but cannot.

[Gob]

Where did you get that image? The best I could find was Dominic Cumming accusing him of saying it in a "whatsapp" chat.

PS. A functioning democracy doesn't end political careers of the PM on the rumours, whims, and back stabbing of ex-advisors, that's Trumpian level politics right there. Or maybe Canada does things differently?

[ex-khobar Andy]

The Liverpool Echo claims that Cummings showed the texts in a BBC2 interview:

But in texts to aides and shown on Tuesday night on Dominic Cummings : The Interview, BBC2, Mr Johnson said: “I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on covid fatalities.

“The median age is 82 – 81 for men 85 for women. That is above life expectancy.

“So get COVID and live longer. Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital (4 per cent) and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate.”

And I suppose anyone with a few brain cells and a bit of spare time could make up a text on their phone and make it look as if it came from FatGuy or however Cummings has him in his contacts list. Like prior records of Cummings/Johnson intercourse (maybe I should rephrase that but you can't make me) I find it difficult to take sides. That BloJo is unfit for purpose, I have no quarrel with. That we will ever get the truth from DomCum I seriously doubt.

[Scooter]

Has Johnson or anyone speaking for him even claimed that the text was doctored? If not, then my thread title stands.

[Gob]

Has Johnson or anyone speaking for him even claimed that the text was doctored? If not, then my thread title stands.

No one questioned if he claimed it was doctored, just that the image is a contrived one, as not actual record of the exchange has been brought forward.

From the BBC:

This is the first major interview Mr Cummings has given, but he has answered MPs' questions on the government's response to Covid.

The claims made at that session were explosive, but he's since been criticised for failing to provide the evidence to back up some of those assertions.

Again, we don't tend to sack prime ministers on hearsay evidence from people with an axe to grind, Just like Canada doesn't even when evidence of them in "blackface" emerge.

And, to be honesty, I do not think there's anything like a sackable offence in that doctored image of yours, even if very word is a verbatim Johnson quote.

[BoSoxGal]

I have to take issue with the premise of the thread. Disregarding the best interests and needs of the old, the young and the vulnerable is standard operating procedure for a great many politicians, as far as I’ve observed in my half century here.

[Scooter]

No one questioned if he claimed it was doctored, just that the image is a contrived one, as not actual record of the exchange has been brought forward.

Forget about the image and focus on the words, is anyone claiming that Johnson didn't actually send that text? Anyone at all? Then the point stands.

And I wouldn't suggest that Johnson's tenure as prime minister should rise or fall on something he said or did 25 years before he took office, so you'll have to come up with a better counterexample.

[Gob]

Forget about the image and focus on the words, is anyone claiming that Johnson didn't actually send that text? Anyone at all? Then the point stands.

The only point that stands is that Cummings claims he said these words. AS you well know, politicians will not rush out to deny anything claimed.

And I wouldn't suggest that Johnson's tenure as prime minister should rise or fall on something he said or did 25 years before he took office, so you'll have to come up with a better counterexample.

But you have claimed. without yet justifying it in any way, why he should fall on his sword over these allegations.

[Scooter]

I certainly don't know that "politicians will not rush out to deny anything claimed". In fact, I know the exact opposite to be true when they believe themselves safe to deny it. The failure to do so, in this case, speaks volumes. As opposed to, for example, claims Cummings made about oral conversations, which Johnson has denied, because there is no written record available to contradict a denial.

And the statement is damning for both its abject stupidity and its callousness, both of which betray a lack of fitness for office.

[liberty]

Unlike the US federal, Britain is a democracy. The British people voted for Brexit over the demands of the elites. When it came to Brexit, I had no dog in the fight; my only concern was democracy. The people either rule or they don’t. In some ways, I admire the British system more than I do the US federal system.

[ex-khobar Andy]

For crying put loud lib, be consistent. (I know, I know.) You've ben telling us that a democracy is when the people do everything and not through elected representatives. (Here.) Sorry to break this to you but UK, like other functioning and malfunctioning democracies, works through a system of elected representatives at several levels.

[Econoline]

liberty, you seem to be under the impression that the UK is a direct democracy, just because the Brexit question was put to a referendum. You're ignoring the facts that (1) the only reason that there *WAS* a referendum was that it was authorized by an Act of Parliament (i.e., elected REPRESENTATIVES of the people) and (2) the referendum was consultative and not legally binding.

The European Union Referendum Act 2015 (c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made legal provision for a consultative referendum to be held in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, on whether it should remain a member state of the European Union or leave the bloc altogether. The Bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary on 28 May 2015. Two weeks later, the second reading of the Bill was supported by MPs from all parties except the SNP; the Bill subsequently passed on its third reading in the Commons on 7 September 2015. It was approved by the House of Lords on 14 December 2015, and given Royal Assent on 17 December 2015. The Act came partly into force on the same day and came into full legal force on 1 February 2016.

The Act gave effect to a manifesto commitment of the Conservative Party at the general election of May 2015, and was one of the most significant pieces of legislation that was passed by the 2015–17 Parliament. It required the Secretary of State to appoint the day on which the referendum should be held, although it could not be any later than 31 December 2017 and, on 20 February 2016, David Cameron announced that the referendum would take place on 23 June 2016. In the referendum, the electorate voted by 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent in favour of leaving the EU, on a 72 per cent national turnout.

The Act became Spent upon the conclusion of the referendum.

This Act required a referendum to be held on the question of the UK's continued membership of the European Union before the end of 2017. The Bill did not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this was a type of referendum known as a pre-legislative or consultative referendum, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion which then influences the Government in its policy decisions.

(source)

[liberty]

For crying put loud lib, be consistent. (I know, I know.) You've ben telling us that a democracy is when the people do everything and not through elected representatives. (Here.) Sorry to break this to you but UK, like other functioning and malfunctioning democracies, works through a system of elected representatives at several levels.

Andy, are you being dishonest, or did you not get it. I never said democracy is when the people do everything. This is simplistic, but it might be easier to remember:

1. A democracy is when the people rule and get what they want.

2. A republic is when the representatives rule and get what they want.

3. A democratic republic is when the people get to punish their representatives by removing them from office when they fail to give the people what the people want.

[Gob]

The failure to do so, in this case, speaks volumes.

about what?

As opposed to, for example, claims Cummings made about oral conversations, which Johnson has denied, because there is no written record available to contradict a denial.

Example?

And the statement is damning for both its abject stupidity and its callousness, both of which betray a lack of fitness for office.

Nonsense.

[Gob]

From the hard right Grauniad

Dominic Cummings had clearly given his interview with Laura Kuenssberg some careful consideration, because he was dressed in recognisable clothes rather than his normal sartorial enquiry, “what would happen if Anya Hindmarsh designed a prison jumpsuit?”



But had he thought this all the way through? We all know about the multidimensional chess, but had the man really nailed down the implications of what he was about to say?

Having tried and failed to get the people of Britain interested in the fact that their prime minister lacks any human empathy – “OK, it’s not great,” we shrugged from our different pockets of the political spectrum, “but also, we already knew that” – Cummings decided to try a new tack: radical openness. What if everyone could see what was really going on behind the curtain? Would we still be using words like “yawn” and “priced in” then?

So he revealed that, within days of the 2019 election, he and the rest of the Vote Leave team were already discussing how to get rid of Boris Johnson and get someone else in as prime minister. There’s no reason to disbelieve his version of events; it’s not as though there’s a queue of more credible sources lining up to dispute it. But it does sound a bit like a nine-year-old trying to explain the plot of The Godfather.

So, there’s the civil service, and there’s Dom and the Vote Leave team, and one of them has to be in charge, and Carrie chooses Dom because he’s more likely to get her into Downing Street where she believes there’s some urgent decorating to do (I’m just trying to flesh out her motivation, there), but then once Dom’s triumphed Carrie is immediately thinking “why shouldn’t it be me pulling the strings?”

She had sucked him dry of his wisdom and now needed somewhere to discard his desiccated bones; we’re invited to think of her as a cross between Martha Stewart and a praying mantis. The words “Lady Macbeth” come up a lot around Carrie, but the latter does, from at least some angles, appear to have loved Macbeth, whereas Carrie thinks her husband is an absolute idiot.

This is also what Cummings thinks. “I had a plan, I was trying to get things done, he didn’t have an agenda, you know the prime minister’s only agenda is buy more trains, buy more buses, have more bikes and build the world’s most stupid tunnel to Ireland, that’s it.”

It’s a shame Carrie and Dom couldn’t have got along better, being of such similar mind.

Back to those implications, though. It feels almost vulgar to point out but doesn’t this amount to something like a coup? A shadowy group of ideologues orchestrates the ascent of a man they know to be inadequate to this or any task, to the highest office of state, and within the week are discussing who to elevate to this not-insignificant role next? Does that sound very much like a functioning democracy?

It didn’t help that Cummings’ eyes were so wild as he described it. Our nine-year-old Godfather narrator has reached the bit about the decapitated horse in the bed, and now you’re a bit worried about his levels of arousal.

Kuenssberg didn’t call it a coup, she went with “con”. By his own description he had scammed the British public. “I don’t think it’s a con,” he replied, “we were trying to solve very hard problems in the order that we can solve them in.”

Her words were very harsh, but the exchange was not, it felt as though he had said ahead of time, “you’ll have to go in very hard on me, here”, and was relishing the experience, not because this fierce questioning wasn’t well-founded but because yet another person was taking his advice.

As for those very hard problems; this is where it all gets metaphysical with Cummings, however many words of his blog you choke through. What are they?

There’s Brexit of course, and anyone who’s sure that’s a good idea “has got a screw loose”, he said, poking himself in the eye – unfortunately only with his finger not a burnt stick. Yet, for his own part, he said: “Obviously I think that Brexit was a good thing.” Ambivalence is for little people, any of whom would be insane to state as certainty a thing of which he himself is certain.

So let’s just leave aside any very hard problem that Dominic himself has caused. Wat are the others? It’s never plain, not in the interview, not ever. He is nothing but a revolutionary Oakeshottian. Michael Oakeshott, you’ll remember of course, infected the conservative worldview for decades in the middle of the last century with his deep cynicism and profound lack of purpose. Politics is no great project, but rather the men in it “sail a boundless and bottomless sea … There is neither harbour nor shelter, neither starting place nor appointed destination”.

Cummings takes this one intoxicating step further. Not only is there no vision for change or betterment, not only is the entire purpose just to keep the thing afloat, but everyone steering it is an idiot. That’s his very hard problem that he can only solve one nefarious step at a time – that everyone is stupid apart from him.

You can see why that problem would seem rather insurmountable, and see, too, why Boris Johnson would look like some kind of an answer. Cummings is the two-eyed king in the kingdom of the blind, he could poke one clean out and still have more eyes than you. From his point of view, one blind person is as bad at seeing as any other.

“That’s OK?” Kuenssberg asked, of his grand con.

“That’s politics.” newspaper...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... his-genius

[Scooter]

The failure to do so, in this case, speaks volumes.

about what?

That he can't credibly deny what he said when a written record of it exists in the form of a text.

As opposed to, for example, claims Cummings made about oral conversations, which Johnson has denied, because there is no written record available to contradict a denial.

Example?

There is an example in the Liverpool Echo article that Andy cited, where Johnson allegedly had to be stopped from going to see the Queen because he hadn't thought of the possibility of infecting her with COVID. Downing Street says it never happened, and because it was a strictly oral exchange, there's nothing to prove that it happened. As opposed to the text in question in the OP, which Johnson can't deny, and therefore hasn't.

And the statement is damning for both its abject stupidity and its callousness, both of which betray a lack of fitness for office.

Nonsense.

Because claiming that old people live longer by getting COVID was the height of wisdom, I guess?

[Gob]

That he can't credibly deny what he said when a written record of it exists in the form of a text.

To deny it would give some credibility to the claim.

There is an example in the Liverpool Echo article that Andy cited, where Johnson allegedly had to be stopped from going to see the Queen because he hadn't thought of the possibility of infecting her with COVID. Downing Street says it never happened, and because it was a strictly oral exchange, there's nothing to prove that it happened. As opposed to the text in question in the OP, which Johnson can't deny, and therefore hasn't.

I've not seen it being denied. And if that is true, it proves nothing about the other accusation, denying one doesn't make the other true, there is no congruence between the two.

And the statement is damning for both its abject stupidity and its callousness, both of which betray a lack of fitness for office.
Because claiming that old people live longer by getting COVID was the height of wisdom, I guess?

An impropriate, but not unfunny, quip.

[Scooter]

To deny it would give some credibility to the claim.

To deny it when a written record of what was said exists would eviscerate his credibility.

There is an example in the Liverpool Echo article that Andy cited, where Johnson allegedly had to be stopped from going to see the Queen because he hadn't thought of the possibility of infecting her with COVID. Downing Street says it never happened, and because it was a strictly oral exchange, there's nothing to prove that it happened. As opposed to the text in question in the OP, which Johnson can't deny, and therefore hasn't.

I've not seen it being denied.[/quote]I intentionally picked an example that was reported in this thread so that you could see that he did deny it. But if you can't even be arsed to that extent, then neither can I, anymore.

And if that is true, it proves nothing about the other accusation, denying one doesn't make the other true, there is no congruence between the two.

What makes "the other" true is the text from which it was quoted verbatim. Once again, the existence or veracity of which has not been disputed.

Because claiming that old people live longer by getting COVID was the height of wisdom, I guess?

An impropriate, but not unfunny, quip.

So we're supposed to believe that he was joking about old people dropping dead in droves? That's not the defense you think it is.

[Gob]

To deny it when a written record of what was said exists would eviscerate his credibility.

A written record which has yet to be produced.

I intentionally picked an example that was reported in this thread so that you could see that he did deny it. But if you can't even be arsed to that extent, then neither can I, anymore.

But denial of one thing is not admittance of another. I thought you were a lawyer.

What makes "the other" true is the text from which it was quoted verbatim. Once again, the existence or veracity of which has not been disputed.

Or admitted.

So we're supposed to believe that he was joking about old people dropping dead in droves? That's not the defense you think it is.

No, we're supposed, according to you, to believe that a silly comment made off the cuff, in private, is sufficient to bring down the Prime Minister of a country

“I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on Covid fatalities. The median age is 82 – 81 for men, 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and live longer.

Says nothing about people "dying in droves", does it, do you really need to tell porkies? Really your sense of proportion and politics seem well distorted.

Again from the right wing Guardian;

Johnson’s statistics echo a report by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, covered by the Sun and Daily Mail a week earlier, which found that the average age of deaths from coronavirus was 82.4 years although that does not suggest the NHS would avoid being overwhelmed.

The data analysed by the study also suggested that 30,000 people who contracted coronavirus were already dying from another illness, and that six people per thousand were likely to die from it.

The statistics spread on social media, where lockdown sceptics pointed out that 82.4 years is above life expectancy (which is 81.26 in the UK) though that number is an average and will include people dying very young. That may have led Johnson to joke “get Covid and live longer”.

According to the Office for National Statistics, men who reach 80 can expect to live another nine years and women another 10.

ETA:

Fast forward to the Conservatives’ landslide election victory in 2019.

Boris ‘wasn’t the right man to running the country’, opined Cummings.

Kuenssberg was horrified that Cummings could help get someone elected whom he considered the wrong man for the job. ‘What kind of con had you just pulled off on the British public if that’s what you think?’ she asked.

Cummings shot her a toothy grin. ‘Well, I’d say that’s politics,’ he said.

What next? He was considering setting up a new party. He wanted to ‘rewire the whole system’