Bear shits in woods. Again!

by Pseud O'Nym

The most shocking thing, to me at any rate, about Dominic’s Cummings – and goings – in breach of government advice only to travel if absolutely essential is that this shocks people. Are they somehow unaware that throughout all of human history, there are two laws, one for the people who make the laws. And the other, far more onerous and subject to punishment by the people who make the laws, for everyone else.

We know this to be true. We know that those in positions of power operate using the same moral compass we all do, but we declare ourselves shocked when this is revealed? Or do we delude ourselves that by the power of Castle Greyskull their position somehow elevates them above the same human impulses we all have? Why do we imagine that the venality, hypocrisy and greed, so rampant in at all levels of public life – according to the stories in ‘Private Eye’ anyway – will be temporarily put on hold for the duration of this pandemic? Why?

One of the modules I took as part of my degree in politics was ‘Disease and the Social Order. It was fascinating to learn how the same basic human foibles and weaknesses had remained constant – indeed more so – during all pandemics throughout history, and that all political elites behaved exactly the same way. Irrespective of any other consideration, humans always act in the same way. I could give examples, but its Sunday – well I think it is but who knows? – and I can’t be bothered to look them up. But you know it’s true. You don’t need me to prove it to you.

So whilst the specifics of this may raise a moments fleeting irritation, I can’t get too excised about it because frankly it isn’t worth the effort. The real story here is how and who leaked this story in the first place, how long and why the media will keep this story going and add new revelations when it begins to flag to rejuvenate it. The story for me isn’t the story. That’s as old as it gets. The real story is why have so many turned on him so quickly? Why has Cummings and goings become such a hate figure,  emblematic of a distant and unaccountable elite, one that plays by it’s own rules?

That’s news. What he did isn’t. It’s a cliché.