love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Hahaha excuse me, that should say Matthew ELLIOTT.

matthew kelly is famously a trot

Very good, Alex, but moral matters in a goverment headed by Boris Johnson?

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.

i think massie also subscribes to the dan davies theory and boris is not the readership he is looking to

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.

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

I give it 18 months until he's DG of the BBC

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

desperate dans

dan dare>>>dan davies>>>dan hodges>>dan "iron you out" dyer>>>dan brown>>>dan snow>>the desperate dane

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

Now talk of multiple trips in the area. Dude really could be responsible for the outbreak there.

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

I have to take a break from Twitter as the hope that any of this is going to change shit is fucking heartbreaking

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

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

Lame. Again Trumplike.

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).

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.

read some fucking Tetlock you clueless cunts isn't cutting it anymore!

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

Johnson’s party position not that strong - ratings were already sinking before this.

The galaxy brain take is that he leaked this himself to ensure everyone knows he's in charge.

I’d like to see ol doms cumming wriggle his way out of THIS jam

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.

also it re-ignites the war for succession

Telling use of 'probably' in that Cummings quote.

lol lashing out at our...famously pro-Remain media

“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

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)

lmao xpost

Sophy Ridge tweeting in advance questions she will ask Grant Shapps tomorrow morning if he turns up.

*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

Oh shit story’s dead.

NEW: No 10 respond to latest Cummings allegations. pic.twitter.com/4GYWaBihgT

— Joe Pike (@joepike) May 23, 2020

🐦[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🕸]🐦

(xp) What, he wasn't in Durham after all?

I am sincerely hoping they’ve got speed camera photos or pictures of him to pull out for Monday if this continues on a third day.

Of course he was there else he's being libelled

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYugSH9WkAESGd6?format=png&name=900x900

(xp) What, he wasn't in Durham after all?

just sack him and then bring him back on the qt in a few months

🎵 Hey QT, hey
There's something I want to say
I have control of your country
There's no getting rid of me 🎵

Nice to see the Tories get owned so hard, but I still remember Pippa Crerar coming out guns blazing to smear anyone opposed to social cleansing in Haringey, so she can remain shitted off.

— I Am Damo Godzuki ⬛🔴 (@b11ckchps) May 23, 2020

Wait a second...his own dad called the coppers?!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYu77xHWoAAG72H?format=jpg&name=large

Yeah, the BBC said that too. That's ... quite the flex

👀

@bbclaurak Could you ask Boris why Dominic Cummings was in Durham today?

— Simon Young (@iamsimonyoung) May 10, 2020

Ha, that is pretty fucking funny. There has to be a photo out there.

domcum’s dad, go on trashfuture

What the fuck is that Bridget Jones thing about?