Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
Sep 20, 2020 16 tweets 16 min read Read on X
“You must obey lockdown rules or face a £10,000 fine & I’d call the police on my neighbour, no hesitation!” says @MattHancock who publicly gave full backing to #DominicCummings when he broke lockdown rules.

You don’t see much of this #Cummings interview.

Luckily I recorded it.
Asked why he didn’t tell the truth about his movements until it was exposed by @PippaCrerar & @DailyMirror, #DominicCummings
explains:

“I thought that If I start explaining things it will cause more confusion.”

Awkward thing, the truth, isn’t it Dom!
“I did not offer to resign. I did not think about resigning.” #DominicCummings

At the time, when I watched this live, I tweeted: “This question will end #Cummings’ political career”

It should have done

It is beyond comprehension how he was permitted to just carry on as normal.
#DominicCummings & his wife were worried that his vision was woozy & maybe not good enough to drive back to London so they put their son in the car for a 50-mile test drive to #BarnardCastle

Once there they walked in the woods & sat by the river #cummings #dominiccummngs @Peston
After #DominicCummings’ abject Rose Garden performance, we expected him to go

But instead @BorisJohnson & his entire Cabinet came out to tell the public - & the media - that it was time to move on

This was Hancock (with me in the background)! #cummings
“I’m going to interpose myself”

When @bbclaurak put a question about #DominicCummings to Chris Whitty & Patrick Vallance, @BorisJohnson stepped in to shield/gag them.

Journalists were clearly not ‘moving on’ as they had been encouraged to do by the govt.
The questions kept coming & more ministers were forced to defend the indefensible & look ridiculous on national TV

Here @michaelgove defends #DominicCummings decision to find out whether his eyesight was good enough to drive by driving to #BarnardCastle.
In perhaps the most desperate attempt to defend #DominicCummings, @michaelgove told @NickFerrariLBC that he’d also taken a drive with his wife “to test my...er....”.

He can't bring himself to try to finish the sentence.

Was it “eyesight” or “sobriety”?
After months of lockdown, the public mood shifted from fear & uncertainty to real anger at #DominicCummings & those justifying his actions

DCMO Jonathan van Tam refused to accept #Cummings’ excuses

We don’t see much of him anymore

And as for #HIGNFY...
“The country wants us to move on,” insisted @BorisJohnson

But it wasn’t true

The country wanted to see #DominicCummings sacked

Around 40 Tory MPs called for #Cummings to resign

The media - muffled for months by pandemic reporting guidelines - were also now finding their voice ImageImageImageImage
For the first time the since the #COVID19 pandemic began, the PM & govt looked genuinely rattled

The tens of thousands of deaths resulting from their late lockdown didn’t seem to ruffle them, but the #Cummings crisis did

So the govt went on the offensive
https://t.co/xmuWCNsqI2
The govt’s turned their guns on the “the media mob”.

On @BBCNewsnight Andrew Bridgen, said he didn’t believe in “throwing #Cummings to the wolves” & said he was taught to “fight the monster”.

According to him, the “wolves” & “the monster” are the media.
Since the #Cummings saga, no govt minister has appeared on Newsnight, @GMB, @Channel4News or & anywhere they might get ‘a rough ride’.

@piersmorgan calls it “a dereliction of their duty as govt ministers” especially as we are at a time of national crisis.
Ex-civil servant, @carneross, said in 2015:

“Govt is an information machine. If journalists weren’t supportive we’d freeze them out."

Journos need to challenge this in the way they staged a mass walkout when colleagues were barred from a No.10 briefing.
“There were two clear drop points [in adherence to lockdown rules]. One was when news broke about #DominicCummings’ trip to Durham. Confidence never recovered”

Yet the govt blame the #2ndWave on the public, teachers, young people, scientists & the science
I don’t usually believe in "signs" but an icy shiver did run down my spine when meteorologists revealed that the #PinkRainbow that appeared while #Cummings facing the media, had one end in the Downing St's Rose Garden...& the other end in #BarnardCastle!

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More from @StefSimanowitz

Mar 9
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”

Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today
wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza Image
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts” Image
Read 8 tweets
Feb 23
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)

Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss

“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob



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Read 4 tweets
Nov 6, 2023
Despite previous denials, Michelle Mone finally admits her involvement in failed PPE supplier Medpro

There should be a criminal investigation into possible intentional breach of beneficial ownership disclosure rules

The govt VIP Lane needs investigating

Something about the #MichelleMone interview doesn’t pass the smell test

Why are Mone & her husband - currently under criminal investigation in UK & Spain - being given a prime time slot to tell ‘their side of the story’?

5 questions @bbclaurak should ask

@bbclaurak “I don’t honestly think there’s a case to answer. I can’t see what we’ve done wrong” @MichelleMone

Wow! #MichelleMone & #DougBarrowman on @bbclaurak’s programme, this morning

Read 13 tweets
Oct 3, 2023
As the 2nd module of the #CovidInquiry begins covering “core UK decision-making & political governance”, comes news that Rishi Sunak - like Boris Johnson - has also fail to fully comply with the order to hand his WhatsApp messages

Both claim they can’t access key messages
#COVID
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“The govt needs get professional IT experts to recover these messages”

Charles Persinger who lost his wife & mother to #COVID, echoes the call of @CovidJusticeUK’s lawyers calling on the @covidinquiryuk to commission experts to retrieve Sunak & Johnson’s ‘lost’ WhatsApp messages
“It was like watching his death approach & seeing every mistake that was made”

@LoreleiKing describes listening to the timeline of govt inaction in the months leading to her husband’s death of #COVID19

Bereaved families want accountability #Covidinquiry
Read 19 tweets
Sep 9, 2023
Twitter's new privacy policy takes effect on 29 September

It gives X the right to use your posts - including DMs - & all your data - including phone, email, biometrics (e.g. face scans & eye scans) to train their AI & to share with any partner X wants👇
twitter.com/en/privacy



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“I do not accept that Twitter has deteriorated in any way since Elon Musk took over”
A week before Twitter’s change in privacy policy, some questions for @elonmusk

1. What biometric information will be collected & what are the intended uses?

How will X ensure that that the data of X’s 530 million users isn’t used for unlawful purposes?
mashable.com/article/x-twit…
Read 13 tweets
Aug 7, 2023
1/. “I am often asked why the UK doesn’t have a successful far-right populist party. My answer is: because it doesn’t need to” @julie_renbe

Far-right politics are becoming mainstreamed in:
Italy
Finland
Sweden
Greece
France
Hungary
Poland
Germany
Spain
UK
theguardian.com/books/2023/jul…
2/. The far right is being increasingly mainstreamed in both European & US politics

Last October, Giorgia Meloni - head of the Brothers of Italy party, which has historical roots in the post-war neo-fascist Italian Social Movement - won Italy’s election
nytimes.com/2023/07/31/pod…

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3/. “The far right don’t need to win elections to spread their malign ideas” @kenanmalik

Last month, a coalition of the centre-right PP & the far-right Vox failed to win Spain’s election

Ystdy, Vox pledged it wouldn’t impede PP’s efforts to form a govt
amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/…




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Read 12 tweets

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