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Baldy Ugly Fuck Cummings


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38 minutes ago, duncan II said:

Weird-looking, universally-despised khunt Cummings walking out the front of Ten Downing Street with a box of his stuff in front of tipped-off media was not a staged show of a circus, no sirree. All genuine.

Yeah I was thinking it last night, actually that looks staged as fuck. Who the performance was actually for is up for debate though.

I originally just took it at face value. He seems to be fucking off before his "glorious plan" consequences come to fruition.

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I don't trust anything to do with Cummings' apparent exit or any noises suggesting Johnson might now be more lovable towards Scotland or anything else. I'd almost prefer Cummings as the 'devil we know' to whatever will come next.

As long as Michael 'from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth' Gove is on the scene he will be fighting tooth and nail to keep Scotland in Union, and shackled to Westminster's will.

The proof will be when they force through the Internal Market Bill. No amount of love bombing from 'cuddly Boris' will change that.

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1 hour ago, exile said:

I don't trust anything to do with Cummings' apparent exit or any noises suggesting Johnson might now be more lovable towards Scotland or anything else. I'd almost prefer Cummings as the 'devil we know' to whatever will come next.

As long as Michael 'from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth' Gove is on the scene he will be fighting tooth and nail to keep Scotland in Union, and shackled to Westminster's will.

The proof will be when they force through the Internal Market Bill. No amount of love bombing from 'cuddly Boris' will change that.

I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be any difference in the approach towards Scotland with or without Cummings.

If the IMB is dropped or more accurately, the contentious clauses over breaking the WA, then its down to one thing and one thing only and that's Biden winning the US Election and the pressure the US will now bring to bear.

I doubt the timing of this is at all coincidental and funny that this all blows up immediately after a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the UK-US relationship.

I suspect that Johnson - the cynical opportunistic pragmatist - realises he needs to change tack, and the idealougues like Cummings threw their toys out of the pram.

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1 hour ago, exile said:

I don't trust anything to do with Cummings' apparent exit or any noises suggesting Johnson might now be more lovable towards Scotland or anything else. I'd almost prefer Cummings as the 'devil we know' to whatever will come next.

As long as Michael 'from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth' Gove is on the scene he will be fighting tooth and nail to keep Scotland in Union, and shackled to Westminster's will.

The proof will be when they force through the Internal Market Bill. No amount of love bombing from 'cuddly Boris' will change that.

Michael-F*cking-Gove... Heinrich Himmler's illegitimate sprog.

 

Who the hell looks at that little sh*t and thinks I'll listen/believe/trust/support him?

Edited by Rich NATA
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10 minutes ago, aaid said:

I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be any difference in the approach towards Scotland with or without Cummings.
 

Probably, wishful thinking on the part of Unionists. I've definitely seen somewhere the suggestion that Johnson might be less agreressive than Cummings, though I was never sure what Cummings' attitude to Scotland actually was (he didn't seem too concerned about losing NI)

 

Quote


If the IMB is dropped or more accurately, the contentious clauses over breaking the WA, then its down to one thing and one thing only and that's Biden winning the US Election and the pressure the US will now bring to bear.

Sure. I've yet to hear anyone suggest that the devo-dissolving parts of the IMB are likely to change for any reason. I can imagine most of the 'honourable rebel Lords' who baulked at the thought of Blighty's reputation for fair play being trashed round the globe would have no qualms about ramming through an internal market bill clawing back power to WM by stealth. I can't think of any reason that they won't cling grimly to the devo parts whatever else happens to the bill.

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1 minute ago, exile said:

Sure. I've yet to hear anyone suggest that the devo-dissolving parts of the IMB are likely to change for any reason. I can imagine most of the 'honourable rebel Lords' who baulked at the thought of Blighty's reputation for fair play being trashed round the globe would have no qualms about ramming through an internal market bill clawing back power to WM by stealth. I can't think of any reason that they won't cling grimly to the devo parts whatever else happens to the bill.

In the long term though, what happens with the UK border on Ireland is hugely important though.  The "devo-dissolving" parts are a battle worth fighting but the "war" is to gain independence.  

Essentially, to honour the GFA - at least in the eyes of the EU (less important to the UKG) and the USA (much more important to the UKG) - there has to be an open border for movement of goods, services and people.   

The implication for Scotland, is, if that can be made to work on the island of Ireland with a land border between part of the UK (NI) and an independent state (ROI), then the same can be made to work between England and Scotland and so destroys any IndyRef2 arguments about intra-Britain trade or border guards at Berwick.   For the Yes side, this is a massive win.

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12 minutes ago, Rich NATA said:

Michael-F*cking-Gove... Heinrich Himmler's illegitimate sprog.

 

Who the hell looks at that little sh*t and thinks I'll listen/believe/trust/support him?

Imagine Mr Gove telling you "Don't worry, devolution is here to stay... the NHS is safe with me... no chlorinated chicken on my watch, no siree..."

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12 minutes ago, aaid said:

In the long term though, what happens with the UK border on Ireland is hugely important though.  The "devo-dissolving" parts are a battle worth fighting but the "war" is to gain independence.  

Essentially, to honour the GFA - at least in the eyes of the EU (less important to the UKG) and the USA (much more important to the UKG) - there has to be an open border for movement of goods, services and people.   

The implication for Scotland, is, if that can be made to work on the island of Ireland with a land border between part of the UK (NI) and an independent state (ROI), then the same can be made to work between England and Scotland and so destroys any IndyRef2 arguments about intra-Britain trade or border guards at Berwick.   For the Yes side, this is a massive win.

Yes, I think wherever they put the border, it doesn't look good for the Union. If it's a hard border in Ireland it will destabilise everything. The harder the border in the Irish Sea, the more that NI is seen to be adrift of the UK, and showing how little WM cares about the Union. That's aside from actual border practicalities. There's all sorts of stuff to be worked out over fish too, I imagine.

I see the battle for the devo part as first of all about overcoming the stealth dimension - making sure it even registers as a power grab. Logically, Labour and Lib Dems should be all over this, fighting for it as much as the SNP. It's Labour's baby after all, and they have their Welsh fiefdom to look after too. An actual battle that was Tories v the rest would not look good for the Tories. So it's important to them, and their friends in the media, for there to be 'nothing to see', for it not to appear to be a battle at all. Though we can be sure Gove knows where it fits in the overall war.

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4 hours ago, phart said:

Yeah I was thinking it last night, actually that looks staged as fuck. Who the performance was actually for is up for debate though.

I originally just took it at face value. He seems to be fucking off before his "glorious plan" consequences come to fruition.

It was definitely staged; a piece of theatre, nothing else. If you look closely you can see he's even still wearing his security pass. If someone leaves a government building for good that's one of the first things that's handed in, and if they've been sacked they're escorted off the premises.

I doubt we've seen or heard the last of him.

1 hour ago, aaid said:

I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be any difference in the approach towards Scotland with or without Cummings.

If the IMB is dropped or more accurately, the contentious clauses over breaking the WA, then its down to one thing and one thing only and that's Biden winning the US Election and the pressure the US will now bring to bear.

I doubt the timing of this is at all coincidental and funny that this all blows up immediately after a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the UK-US relationship.

I suspect that Johnson - the cynical opportunistic pragmatist - realises he needs to change tack, and the idealougues like Cummings threw their toys out of the pram.

This. 👆

Johnson is a renowned shape-shifter, even the Americans know it, and he'll have to keep them sweet to get the trade deal his government is relying on to make Brexit work.

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12 hours ago, aaid said:

I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be any difference in the approach towards Scotland with or without Cummings.

If the IMB is dropped or more accurately, the contentious clauses over breaking the WA, then its down to one thing and one thing only and that's Biden winning the US Election and the pressure the US will now bring to bear.

I doubt the timing of this is at all coincidental and funny that this all blows up immediately after a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the UK-US relationship.

I suspect that Johnson - the cynical opportunistic pragmatist - realises he needs to change tack, and the idealougues like Cummings threw their toys out of the pram.

Thats the only thing I can think of why Cummings has left. Perhaps Biden just telt Boris straight.

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23 hours ago, phart said:

Yeah I was thinking it last night, actually that looks staged as fuck. Who the performance was actually for is up for debate though.

I originally just took it at face value. He seems to be fucking off before his "glorious plan" consequences come to fruition.

Yeah, I mean, it’s obviously staged. Maybe it’s reading too much into it that it’s a grand Boris/Cummings plan but rather it’s simply his way of having him and his massive ego remain the story.

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@micheal Crick 

I’m amused to read all these colleagues saying Cummings has left number 10 for good Don’t be so sure I remember when Cameron forced Gove to sack Cummings as his special advisor at Education. Several weeks later my cameraman filmed Cummings leaving at the Education Department 

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I suspect there's probably several things going on here.

As well as being Johnson's bidey-in, Carrie Symonds is also a Tory party insider, she used to work for them, that's how they met, so she has her own views and network.   While she doesn't have any formal role, their relationship -as far as party dynamics is concerned - is probably more akin to that of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell than, say, Theresa May and her husband.

Cummings has been very unpopular with large swathes of the Tory party, both MPs but also their staffs, Tory party workers, etc.   I don't believe that he's ever even been a member and he's not the sort of person who looks to build bridges - garden or otherwise - and mend fences.

Up until the Barnard Castle incident, Cummings was bombproof as he was credited with delivering both Brexit at the 80 seat majority but he still had a number of enemies in the Tory party.

After Barnard Castle, while Johnson expended a huge amount of political capital to keep him in place, in a sense he was living on borrowed time.   Over the months since then, he's gradually moved to be a bit more peripheral and also those opposing him have become more vocal - although not generally on the record.

I suspect things have come to a head this week with all the shenanigans over Lee Cain, who went from being offered the position of CoS to being out the door in a little over a week. 

I also think the timing is not coincidental and suspect that Biden winning the US election, while not causing this directly, has probably brought it to a head with the change in approach that will necessitate from No. 10.

Apparently Cummings has been working almost exclusively on two things, mass testing and the "moonshot" program.   

Johnson publicly has been betting the farm on these for the past few months and I suspect he realises one of two things - probably both.

Cummings is probably so key to the work that's been going on that replacing him with immediate effect will derail or at least delay it.     Even if that's not true, if the program isn't going as well as they've been hoping - and that would be pretty much consistent with everything they've done with regards to COVID - then any delay will be blamed on this "unnecessary distraction".

Either way, mass testing doesn't come through, Lockdown in England is extended beyond December 2, then the blame will all fall on him and specifically be painted as being caused by an argument between Cummings and Symonds.   

That would be a very difficult one for Johnson and would cause him huge damage.

That explains why Cummings has been sent home to either finish the work or to give the impression that he's been given the opportunity to finish the work.

 

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