I HAVE a neighbour who is a pensioner. She has no support and few relatives. A number of weeks ago one of her brothers died of cancer. She couldn’t be with him when he died, she couldn’t go to his funeral, she couldn’t even be there when they scattered his ashes. All because the government told her she couldn’t and she was dutifully following what they said for public safety, even though it caused her so much pain.
Her only other relatives are one brother in a care home and a housebound sister, so she has been left to make the arrangements alone. She has been very upset by the whole thing. She is 74! I have tried to support her as best I can.
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I find Cummings's false contrition and pleas to be understood as a “caring father” deeply insulting when he has been at the heart of creating the instructions that have caused my elderly, lonely neighbour so much pain and grief. There can be NO excuses for his actions!!
Crìsdean Mac Fhearghais
Dùn Èideann
HAVING watched the Cummings press conference I conclude it was clearly a very poorly staged media event limited to a chosen few, but broadcast nationally, intended to "con" the public and act as a damage limitation exercise.
It only padded out the initial BBC defence of Cummings with additional extensive fluffy waffle. The "control" factor was glaringly obvious and the acting of the media "inquisitors" quite atrocious.
Cummings's attempts to portray himself as a concerned, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, panicking working father were nauseating. How many ordinary working fathers can arrange such an interview to "defend" their actions? Cummings clearly has the Prime Minister dangling on strings yet he expects us to believe that he does not have the personal clout to get priority tested for the virus or assistance to arrange first-class care for his wife and child in London. Pull the other leg.
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He clearly broke lockdown rules and his actions throughout the sad episode were selfish and showed no "integrity" whatsoever. He is unrepentant and would do the same again. The most shocking thing of all was that his wife while, in his opinion, possibly suffering from the virus, attended a local hospital in the Durham area and stayed overnight there with her son. Where had his supportive family gone? What consideration or concern was shown to the patients and staff at the hospital? The "selected" London media team have not "solved" anything here. They are seriously part of a growing and continuing problem. They support the Downing Street message – don’t do as we do, do as we say!
George Wylie
via email
WHEN I heard about Dominic Cummings eyesight problems I thought: “Is this another symptom of this virus?”, especially when the PM produced glasses from his pocket and claimed the same thing.
It did not take me long to realise that their eyesight has indeed been seriously compromised since they are unable to see what the rest of us can see clearly – a man (and woman) who do not believe the rules apply to them, who have no-one in London able to help (despite his wife having family in London) and financial resources most can only dream of and who give an account of their "lockdown experience" in The Spectator but leave out the little detail of a 250-mile each way trip, and another trip to Barnard Castle of 30 miles each way to "test eyesight" on what just happens to be his wife's birthday and Easter Sunday.
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Many people in this country see quite clearly rich men and women of privilege who blatantly break any rule which does not suit them and then retrofit the rules to suit their purpose and have friends who will back them up because their eyesight is seriously compromised as well, and even with hindsight have no regrets about their actions.
Forever we will remember "Woking for pizza" and "Barnard Castle for testing eyesight".
Winifred McCartney
Paisley
IN light of the Chief Buffoon Bo Jo – who hired an even bigger buffoon, namely Dignitas Cummings – saying his adviser acted “instinctively”, my instinct tells me that tomorrow evening at 8pm instead of clapping for NHS and carers, the population should slow handclap Cummings, Johnson and all Tory incompetents, in order to show them nationwide the contempt they deserve.
Ron Wynton
Fortrose
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