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Comment by DangerousPie | Hacker News Reader

To give some context, this is the guy who is currently at the centre of a scandal for breaking the law to drive hundreds of miles to his parents during lockdown, with his wife (who had covid) and child in the car. And didn't even go directly, but stopped by a local beauty spot on the way back. And now he has been coming up with flimsy excuses for this for the last few days, which the government (including the prime minister) desperately parrots lest they would have to admit that one of their team did something wrong.

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I’m confused why you aren’t voted up, this is an extremely accurate description that is pertinent to the story.

To give our non-UK friends a bit more context (in case anyone thinks “flimsy excuses” is applying a bit of bias) he was caught going on a walk in a little town near his second home (itself a few hundred miles from where he probably should have been). His excuse was that he was feeling ill and had troubles with his eyesight so he decided to go for a (30 mile) drive to check ... I dunno, if he could see I guess? That thing you do when you have trouble with your eyesight, jump into a car and go for a drive.

Update: the “upvote” point was because your comment was greyed out, and after I upvoted you were still greyed out, suggesting you were fairly deep in the -ve at that point

Not only that, but the drive he took to “test his eye sight“ was with his wife and child in the car, they ended up driving to a local castle, and it happened to be on his wife’s birthday.

Good grief, his covid-positive wife was with him!?

Yes. Him, his covid-19 positive wife, and their child drove 250 miles in the same car.

It's not very accurate given that he didn't break any law as the parent claimed. He went against a guidance.

He said he drove with impaired eye sight, which violates the road traffic act.

He broke section 6 of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, which is the law that implements the guidance.

A law that Cummings himself was involved in drafting.

Isn't the story itself about a senior government adviser updating his blog, to make it look like he expected the Covid-19 crisis? The fact that the same adviser ignored his own advice, while both sickening, and amusingly ironic, is incidental here.

I suppose though, it does help for context.

It's basically Steve Bannon all over again.

He did expect this, just about pandemics and viruses in general not coronavirus specifically. Honestly, he should get a lot of credit for it (though he ruined that by editing) given that it's something he has talked a lot about.

It's not incidental - he referenced this blog post in a press conference today, in which he responded to this scandal. (Without apologizing, of course.) The two are closely linked politically, as he is trying to defend himself from criticism by touting his supposed prescience.

That, I didn't know.

RTFA, I guess?

It's still only incidental though.

I think another poster said it best, this is about him suggesting he did something he didn't to try and look clever. It's pretty interesting in itself, because Dominic Cummings stands on his body of work as a self styled paragon of scientific governance.

Him being an arse is probably somewhat apart from that.

Pretty sure he referenced various forms of 'scientific advice' a couple of times in that interview too. We could start leading this discussion towards the subject of him attending impartial scientific advisory meetings (the SAGE scandal).

Or we could have a lengthy discussion about his eyesight...

I think it's worth drawing a line around stuff like that.

If we want to have a wide open political discussion about a key government adviser, we should probably base it on a more relevant story. But it probably would flounce HN rules.

Also "RTFA"?

Let's be polite. we should be sharing news sources.

Not beating each other over the head with them.

To be clearer still, I would love to see him sacked, for a litany of reasons. But this isn't the place to discuss that. At most, I think this article could provide the basis for a decent discussion about what his _real_ opinion on the Covid-19 crisis might be...

But not specifically about his journey to Durham.

Is that fair?

> The fact that the same adviser ignored his own advice, while both sickening, and amusingly ironic, is incidental here.

It's a bit worse because it's not just "advice" or "guidance", it is also the law. He broke the law. Plenty of people have had fixed penalty notices as a result of breaking that law.

> who is currently at the centre of a scandal for breaking the law

There was a recent story about Neil Gaiman travelling from New Zealand back to his home in Scotland. He was given a strict talking to by the police and issued a public apology – and that, as far as I understand, was the end of it. Is Cummings held to different standards?

Did Neil Gaiman travel with his Covid 19 infected partner, or lie about his trip to get himself out of trouble? Come to think of it, has Cummings even apologised?

Also we could hold him to the same standards as his peers - fellow politicians. The closest case I can think of is Catherine Calderwood ...

Cummings should be held to different standards. He's paid from public funds.

He needs to follow the Nolan Principles of Public Office and he needs to follow the Special Adviser guidelines.

Both of those contain clauses about openess and honesty.

1. Cummings hasn't been given a strict talking to by the police.

2. Cummings hasn't issued a public apology.

3. Gaiman isn't an advisor to the Prime Minister, and wasn't intimately involved with the drafting of the rules he broke.

If a doctor were to prescribe that a patient needs chemotherapy, you wouldn't expect the doctor to get chemotherapy along with the patient, right? Would you even trust a doctor that was undergoing intense chemotherapy with all the mental side effects along with it?

Dominic Cummings is a senior political advisor to Boris Johnson himself. His thinking helps shape the country, and therefore he needs to constantly in top mental form, especially during this crisis.

So, if he feels the need to travel the country as he did, everyone should support him, or face the consequences of having a mentally distracted political advisor trying to help run the country

What the hell are you talking about?!

What do you think?

A doctor administering chemotherapy is such a daft counterargument that I don't know where to start.

Dominic Cummings was infected with the Coronavirus and by moving to a second home and by his own admission using the local healthcare resources in that area he was risking spreading the virus.

> A doctor administering chemotherapy is such a daft counterargument that I don't know where to start.

It's an analogy, you bobblehead.

> Dominic Cummings was infected with the Coronavirus and by moving to a second home and by his own admission using the local healthcare resources in that area he was risking spreading the virus.

One person's effect is so slight, it's negligible. However, having an advisor helping shape the laws and policies of the country not being in top form, is much more dangerous. Bad policy can kill thousands of people.

What law did he break?

He didn’t technically break a law, but definitely broke very clear government guidance – “Stay Home“ is about as unambiguous as it gets. Millions of people took the rules very seriously, missing loved one’s funerals for example, and he drove 260 miles to his parent’s house and a local castle.

The law said one must not leave one's house without a "reasonable excuse".

Going for an hour+ drive just to see if your eyes work is not a reasonable excuse.

So no law was broken, just guidance... maybe. Depending on interpretation

How else could one interpret “Stay Home“?

"Drive across the country and go for a picnic in Barnard Castle" apparently

Not sure about you, but I certainly don't take a brightly coloured PR slogan plastered on a Tory government podium as gospel

The guidance from Government needs to read in conjunction with the law because the guidance describes "reasonable". The guidance was clear: do not leave home; do not travel to second homes; don't mix households; if you need help use your local networks.

You've been allowed to leave your home from Day 1 of the lockdown and there is no law to say otherwise

Edit: Though under reasonable terms, including exercise and food shopping. If you have only obeying the slogans, which was my point, well that's unfortunate

> You've been allowed to leave your home from Day 1 of the lockdown and there is no law to say otherwise

Again, only with reasonable excuse. He didn't have a reasonable excuse. The law says

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/ma...

> 6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

It then lists some reasonable excuses. Travelling to a second home is not listed in the reasonable excuses.

The government guidance is important because it provides context to "reasonable" -- it expands the list of reasonable excuses.

The guidance at the time was "You must stay at home", "you must not travel", "you must not travel to a second home".

The Crown Prosecution Service guidance is important because it curtails police action. The CPS guidance was similarly clear: travelling to a second home is unlikely to be reasonable, unless it's someone fleeing domestic abuse.

Police guidance tells us how they would have handled Cummings if they'd stopped him as he travelled from London to Durham. The police have said that they'd have turned him back.

Very many people have been fined for doing exactly what Cummings did, and those fines are not going to be withdrawn.

He cited doubts about eyesight as an excuse for a 30 minute leisure drive. Apparently, one retired police chief suggests that's illegal. Which does sound about right.

There are laws against leaving his house without a valid reason and driving with impaired eye sight, aren't there?

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/12649555774715043...

Not sure about the UK, but in Australia, if I suspected my eyesight was bad, and went for a drive, and was involved in an accident, I would probably be charged with negligent driving. Even if I weren't involved in an accident, the negligent driving would still be breaking the law, but there would be no occasion to prove it.

Section 6 of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/ma...

> 6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

He claims his reasonable excuse was to get childcare from his family in Durham. That might cover his trip from London to Durham, but it doesn't cover his trip back again.

I'd argue it doesn't cover his trip from London to Durham because he had childcare available in London which he chose not to use.

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