1. I can't say I don't like Mr Cummings because I don't know him. He might be a really nice, friendly, lovely man but unless I actually meet him and get to know him (unlikely) I won't ever find out.
2. I don't like the fact that an unelected, and therefore unremoveable, person can have any influence over the PM. I felt the same with Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair (I think I have the right man)
3. I wish he had been caught going to his holiday home or having a tryst with his married lover then I could join in the "he must go" brigade. But he did neither of these.
4. He did not go to his parents house. He went to a house near his sister and niece.
5. His wife was ill. He knew there was a good chance he would be ill. No one, prince or pauper, knows how this illness will affect them. Yes, they could get it mildly, but they might also have been extremely ill and need hospital care. Just look what happened to Boris Johnson.
6. Imagine the panic. They have a four year old son and no back up in London. If they were really really ill just exactly what would have happened, not to them, but to that little boy? We aren't talking about someone leaving a bag of groceries and loo paper on the door step here, we are talking about caring for one very small child. Would he have been taken into care? Would social workers have taken him to his aunt's house? Would anyone have known about him?
7. How many of us can truly say we would not have done the same? My SiL had symptoms and was tested (fortunately negative). My DD , a frontline NHS worker , knew if he had it, she may get it too. She asked my other daughter if she would look after her niece and nephew if she and her and BiL were too ill. The only difference being that my two DDs live 10 minutes apart and needn't make that decision in advance.
8. Ellanvanin I don't think that Mr Cummings isn't your idea of handsome is remotely relevant. Would you feel differently if he was drop dead gorgeous?
9. Let's stop this " let's bash the government, regardless" attitude. Too many people are being deliberately obtuse and just looking for any excuse to make trouble. If we are to survive this emotionally as well as physically we have to stop always looking for the bad and the negative and start using common sense and compassion. And always say " in all honesty, what would I say/do in the same situation?"