Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Dominic Cummings’s lockdown critics will never be happy

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Happy now? Thought not. Dominic Cummings has delivered his statement and answered questions but still the critics aren’t appeased. Not at all. In fact, the tenor of the questions that were put to him suggested that quite a few of the journalists lucky enough to be socially distancing in the Downing Street rose garden, plus those listening at a distance, hadn’t been listening to a word he said.

Didn’t he realise that there were people out there who hadn’t seen their elderly parents or grandparents for months and how would they feel knowing that he’d been gadding up to Durham to see his? There were parents with dependent children who could have done exactly as he did, but they didn’t because they respected the rules…’do you owe them an apology?’ How did he feel knowing that scientists believed his actions had made it more difficult to send out a clear message…? And what about that test drive to Barnard Castle? Impaired vision? And driving? With a child in the car? Get social services, someone. (That last one was on Twitter.)

I paraphrase, obviously, but that’s because I’ve been on a few radio chat shows – of which, by a mile, the most intelligent was the Radio Five Live show hosted by the brilliant Stephen Nolan – and this was precisely the gist of it; the questions put to Mr C in Downing Street reflect the indignant callers out there. Miriam from Glasgow has two children with special needs but she hadn’t been able to get the usual help for them, so how come Dominic Cummings felt he could twist the rules? How did it make her feel? Gutted. And Stephen whose father had died in a care home and he hadn’t been able to attend the funeral? How did he feel? Very angry.

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