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.
― Alert! The virus lives (Matt #2), Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:30 (four years ago) link
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.
― gyac, Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:30 (four years ago) link
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
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:33 (four years ago) link
I’d like to see ol doms cumming wriggle his way out of THIS jam
― What fash heil is this? (wins), Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:35 (four years ago) link
Could I have a link to the Dan Davies stuff please?
― santa clause four (suzy), Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:48 (four years ago) link
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?
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:50 (four years ago) link
I would guess:1) Johnson is much sicker than he admits and can't put the hours in2) Cummings is covering and making decisions3) 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
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:51 (four years ago) link
Given the hashtags I’d say it absolutely is a brooch self-own
― What fash heil is this? (wins), Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:51 (four years ago) link
(the full dd discussion is spread in various conversations)
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:52 (four years ago) link
lol bojo dying of plague is the only possible reason the lazy cunt can’t put the hours in
― What fash heil is this? (wins), Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:52 (four years ago) link
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.
― santa clause four (suzy), Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:57 (four years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 23 May 2020 17:58 (four years ago) link
Things have taken a sinister twist since Game For A Laugh ended.
― The Rampaging Goats of Llandudno (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:02 (four years ago) link
the massie piece is -- to put it mildly -- hurriedly written
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:05 (four years ago) link
Hahaha excuse me, that should say Matthew ELLIOTT.
― santa clause four (suzy), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:09 (four years ago) link
matthew kelly is famously a trot
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:17 (four years ago) link
Very good, Alex, but moral matters in a goverment headed by Boris Johnson?
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:21 (four years ago) link
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.
― stet, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:22 (four years ago) link
i think massie also subscribes to the dan davies theory and boris is not the readership he is looking to
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:23 (four years ago) link
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.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:36 (four years ago) link
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
― stet, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:38 (four years ago) link
I give it 18 months until he's DG of the BBC
― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:40 (four years ago) link
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
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:40 (four years ago) link
desperate dans
dan dare>>>dan davies>>>dan hodges>>dan "iron you out" dyer>>>dan brown>>>dan snow>>the desperate dane
― calzino, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:41 (four years ago) link
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, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:42 (four years ago) link
Dan Worsley
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:45 (four years ago) link
Now talk of multiple trips in the area. Dude really could be responsible for the outbreak there.
― stet, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:48 (four years ago) link
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
― calzino, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:51 (four years ago) link
I have to take a break from Twitter as the hope that any of this is going to change shit is fucking heartbreaking
― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:52 (four years ago) link
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
― plax (ico), Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:55 (four years ago) link
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
― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 23 May 2020 18:59 (four years ago) link
Lame. Again Trumplike.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:05 (four years ago) link
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).
― stet, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:06 (four years ago) link
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.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:07 (four years ago) link
read some fucking Tetlock you clueless cunts isn't cutting it anymore!
― calzino, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:08 (four years ago) link
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
― plax (ico), Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:09 (four years ago) link
Johnson’s party position not that strong - ratings were already sinking before this.
― stet, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:11 (four years ago) link
The galaxy brain take is that he leaked this himself to ensure everyone knows he's in charge.
― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:14 (four years ago) link
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:17 (four years ago) link
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.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:19 (four years ago) link
also it re-ignites the war for succession
― mark s, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:24 (four years ago) link
Telling use of 'probably' in that Cummings quote.
― nashwan, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:34 (four years ago) link
lol lashing out at our...famously pro-Remain media
― nashwan, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:35 (four years ago) link
“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
― groovypanda, Saturday, 23 May 2020 19:57 (four years ago) link
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)
― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 23 May 2020 20:07 (four years ago) link
lmao xpost
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 23 May 2020 20:14 (four years ago) link
Sophy Ridge tweeting in advance questions she will ask Grant Shapps tomorrow morning if he turns up.
― nashwan, Saturday, 23 May 2020 20:17 (four years ago) link
*Dead Zone vision of the future* the chemistry teacher who saw Cummings on his second trip & told the Mirror is about to get the full fury of the media establishment raining down on him, ain’t gonna be pretty— Keir Starmer's Field (@pgofton) May 23, 2020
― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 23 May 2020 20:26 (four years ago) link
Oh shit story’s dead.
NEW: No 10 respond to latest Cummings allegations. pic.twitter.com/4GYWaBihgT— Joe Pike (@joepike) May 23, 2020
― stet, Saturday, 23 May 2020 20:39 (four years ago) link
🐦[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🕸]🐦
― gyac, Saturday, 23 May 2020 20:41 (four years ago) link