This week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s senior aide Dominic Cummings gave his first press conference. We at The Origin of the Specious watched it. Over approximately one hour, he delivered his rationale for making the 250 mile journey to Durham at the start of the country’s lockdown. He then told of how Coronavirus affected his family before moving onto a description of his family’s return trip to London which featured a detour to Barnard Castle in order to determine whether he was fit to and the subsequent drive home. The Origin of the Specious watched the press conference and the question and answer session that followed. Cummings stayed true to his scripted words.
Frankly, we were unimpressed. None of the questions were probing. All the press kept trying to get out of Cummings was an admission that he was wrong whilst trying to eke out an apology from him. None was forthcoming. Since then, one journalist was replaced on a BBC news programme for violating the Corporation’s policies regarding impartiality when she introduced the story by summarising the views of the nation.
The Origin of the Specious has been left wondering if the press were complicit in or incompetent by giving Mr Cummings an easy ride. One example of what journalists did not ask was that in the Letters to the Editor page of The Times the next day. One reader asked why Mr Cummings did not ask his wife to drive should he feel unwell. If she were so able, it would have obviated the need for Cummings to check his eyesight.
We are also left wondering for just how long the news has ceased to be investigative to any extent. The result of the Cummings press conference led to Boris Johnson’s approval ratings falling. Perhaps it is easier for the media to report on polls. Numbers are easier than dealing with people. Never mind general elections are the only courts of public opinion that matter.
It is all a populism explosion. The news is no longer probing since it merely gives way to what Joe Public thinks in and for the moment. This is no way for anyone to run a country. Rather than lead, politicians are looking over their shoulders at what any action or statement might mean to some pollster during a term of governance, even if those giving their opinions do so without having all of the facts to support their conclusion. It is bandwagon politics.
The escapades of Dominic Cummings are a tale almost as old as lockdown. Whether this populism explosion will make the story a best seller or whether it will fade from the spotlight is one we will not know – until the next polls come in.
Mr.Cummings had to stick to the script, no doubt..
If you were looking for answers, don’t look for them comming from one who speaks politics!! 😉
I’ve noticed the platform of ‘news’ has been slowly changing, unfortunately, from the detailed probing kind that we have become accustomed to (as it should be)..
To the socially acceptable garbage one has to shift through, to actually find news. 😐