The furore over Dominic Cummings was in my opinion and from watching how the story unfolded, primarily a media created and media driven event. It was not an organic story arising from genuine public concern, but was a ‘gotcha’ story from a Metro-Left press that has shown its very biased hand when it comes to the Conservative Party.

Dominic Cummings did not put anyone in any ‘danger’ with his trip along with his wife to secure child care for their child should Mr and Mrs Cummings become seriously ill with Covid19. But you would not know that if all that you read or consumed was the British mainstream media. He did not travel by public transport, nor did he have any appreciable contact with anyone outside of his immediate family. He and his wife travelled together in a car and away from anyone else.

Whatever ‘crime’ or ‘error’ Mr Cummings may have made and the great scheme of things it’s a small one, his error is not the same as that made by Professor Ferguson, the driving force behind the lockdown. Ferguson broke his own lockdown rules for a mere shag, a booty call, whereas Mr Cummings made a judgement call in order to get suitable care or potential care for their disabled son. I know what I would call more important, wouldn’t you?

Although I’m a Brexiteer and can see Mr Cummings value to the Brexit cause, even when I
put tribalism to one side, I see there is no comparison between why Mr Cummings did what he did and the actions of Professor Ferguson. I think that any parent would have done what Mr Cummings did if it looked like both primary carers for their child were going to go down with Covid19.

However, it is how Mr Cummings has handled the Press in this case that is impressive. It’s on object lesson on how to deal with a bunch of ravening dogs with a bone of nontroversy in their mouths. Firstly he gave them sufficient rope to metaphorically hang themselves with by letting the whole country see the press’s hypocrisy. The press doorstepped him (I need to say at this point that sometimes doorstepping is a legitimate journalistic tactic, although in this case it badly backfired) and whilst doing so failed to observe any social distancing measures whatsoever. This has been noted by quite a number of people.

Secondly, when he made his statement in the garden of Number Ten, he didn’t crumple, he didn’t apologise nor beg for forgiveness in the face of a hostile press., He toughed it out. He said his piece and answered questions from journalists relatively politely but defiantly stood his ground. By doing so he made the Press look very bad indeed. He showed the UK Press not to be relatively impartial purveyors of news, but agenda driven activists with a massive and dominating platform with which to spread their point of view, a platform I might add that is denied to those who oppose the mainstream media’s point of view and narrative.

We saw on our screens that what faced Mr Cummings was not a group of thoughtful, incisive journalists, but a mob no better than the thugs of Antifa, although in this case it was a mob in expensive suits and access to a Number Ten press conference. In the tussle between the UK press and Mr Cummings it seems that Mr Cummings has come out of it the best. He seems to have his reputation intact following this incident, but sadly I cannot say the same about the reputation of the UK Press. From what I can gather their reputation following this incident is firmly right down in the gutter.

Mr Cummings has done what few have been able to do in recent years and that’s stand up to the Press and expose them for their biases and for what is quite plainly a story based around concocted outrage, devised by a mainstream media that is opposed to just about everything that Mr Cummings believes in. What we saw recently were not reporters, but activists and quite a few people I’ve talked to have noticed this and they may never watch the news media without this image of a bunch of snarling left leaning activists coming to mind.