priveleged rule breakers, dominic cummings and luxury car drivers
The latest attempt by the media’s outrage stimulus unit has been to villify Dom Cummings for “breaking the lockdown rules”.
Apparently he drove his family to Durham to self isolate for a couple of weeks or something.
I get the whole “it’s one rule for everyone else but a different one for them” argument but it seems like plain common sense is not allowed to play a part in any discussion any more.
While I’ve certainly not been a fan of many of the current government’s campaign tactics and open relationship with the truth, I have to admit I admire Cumming’s first reaction to the media who confronted him:
‘I behaved reasonably and legally. Who cares about good looks. It’s a question of doing the right thing. It’s not about what you guys think.’
There are two ways of reading this, the first of which is that he’s just an arrogant and privileged prick 1.
The second is that this is refreshing honesty compared to the blustering question dodging that we are used to from politicians, which to my mind is 90% the fault of the media in the first place because anything anyone says nowadays just gets jumped on. They are now deliberately so vague about everything to allow plenty of room for back tracking if necessary. It’s clear there is a toxic environment of straight talking not being allowed – apart from the crappy populist slogans which somehow pass for straight talk with many people nowadays.
Either way you can see why Cummings got Boris to run for PM for him 🙂
Before we move on let’s just call out all of the right wing twats who’ve just doggedly supported their man and tried to turn this into a left vs right thing yet again. I actually read one story on the Sun where people in the comments were unironically calling for a BBC presenter to be sacked for not reporting on this story in an unbiased manner – i.e. because she didn’t “follow the rules” (I know I know, never read the comments on the internet if you want to keep any sense of faith in humanity!)
And let’s not pretend if the boot was on the other foot the right wing media wouldn’t have hounded whoever it was out of a job. I mean can you imagine if Dianne Abbot had done the same thing?
What is perhaps even funnier is that many of the people slamming DC that I know of actually voted for him (indirectly) in the last election, and yet this is the first time they’ve ever heard of him *man shrugging emoji*
controversial view alert
Rules, especially during this Corona pandemic, can be extremely arbitrary, for example:
- I can see one parent outside for an hour, then swap almost immediately and see the other. I fail to see how this setup means there is any less chance of passing on a virus than if I meet them both at the same time.
- I can’t yet sit in my parents back garden 2m away from them, but I can sit on a public bench where hundreds of other people may have been sitting that day, and where there could be many other random people all within roughly 2m of me if it’s a busy park on a nice day.
- One day it will not be OK to do something then there will be an announcement and the very next day it will all of a sudden be ok to do so. This has almost zero bearing at an individual case level on whether you are more or less likely to contact or pass on the disease if doing said activity.
I get it, they have to say things are allowed “at some point”, and obviously it’s all about average probabilities across the whole population, but still no one seems to be acknowledging this point about the somewhat arbitrary nature of both the rules themselves and when they are imposing or removing them 2.
The thing is they can’t let on, because that would give people a free pass to ignore the rules, because “I’ve obviously got more common sense than everyone else”.
Here comes the controversial bit: some people actually do have more common sense than the average person. The rules are there primarily to stop people without any common sense doing really stupid things like holding mass gatherings and parties.
For those of us exercising common sense I think the rules can be a little bit more malleable.
To make things crystal clear: Yes I have broken the lockdown “rules”!
I have:
- Shock: gone out 3 times in day when you were only supposed to go out once. One time was for groceries, another for a run on my own, another for a walk with my daughter. Apparently that was against the rules (law?!)
- Horror: Chatted to family over the front garden wall. While we were 2m away I am pretty sure this was not allowed according to “the rules”
- Outrage: Made several journeys that weren’t really essential such as picking up some paint from B&Q (which was open for collections and the queue there was freaking huge so….?)
Another point is that people will always take the piss and try to push the boundaries as well (myself included, obviously!). So they have to create these seemingly silly rules a bit harsher than they really need to be to stop the “overreach” factor actually reaching a point where there are many people doing things that would be truly undesirable.
An obvious example would be if they had said you could see only close friends and family from the offset, that would have led to plenty more people taking the piss and having huge BBQs and parties. It’s just human nature to push the boundaries just a little bit. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman actually suggests one step further and has an experiment that shows people will “cheat” up to the point where they think they’ll be caught. What naughty chimps us lot really are!
privileged rule breakers
Having said all of that, there are plenty of examples of people who think they are plain special, or “above the law” if you will, especially those in politics and finance, and the entertainment industry.
The CFO of my old company was renowned for refusing to fly anything but business class and would stay in overly expensive hotels. I wouldn’t have any issue with this sort of behaviour if the same rules apply for everyone else but most of the lower rung staff would get the Spanish Inquisition over a few local train fares (these strict rules came directly from the top, i.e. him). He was also a notoriously tight git when it came to opening up his own wallet so yet again different rules were applied.
I just listened to a podcast Michael Lewis of “The big Short” game called “Against the Rules” where he references a study done to correlate the value of a car to whether the driver follows the rules of the road.
The study simply had the researchers hide in a bush to see what type of cars stopped for a pedestrian waiting to cross at a crossing (by law you have to stop in California where the study was done).
I’d imagine this is unsurprising to anyone who’s ever been in a car that those in the luxury car bracket didn’t stop 40% of the time. Those in the lowest price bracket stopped: Every. Single. Time.
I’m sure we can all anecdotally confirm that people speeding tend to have more expensive cars as well.
Now unlike many other types of rule breaking/bending this surely has nothing to do with common sense. Common sense is to drive carefully, end of story.
By driving like a bellend you are not only endangering other lives, you are risking your own as well as risking ruining your life by ending up with a prison sentence for death by dangerous driving. Common sense clearly has nothing to do with it at this stage, it’s because they think they deserve to get to their destination faster than you do, they are better and more important than you are: privileged.
The same goes for those people who are already incredibly rich and powerful yet for some reason still end up breaking the law 3 to get “ahead” even further.
Anyway, back to the podcast. It was a very interesting experiment but the podcast didn’t seem to discuss it in any depth at all, just provided it as evidence that rich people are tossers (I guess that’s the point they were trying to make anyway).
My initial thought was about correlation and causation. Is there any and if so what way does the arrow point?
What if these people ended up getting ahead precisely because they played fast and loose with the rules?
Maybe having a privileged attitude (“I deserve this”) means people end up being more ambitious and so they try harder and end up getting ahead that way? Although if this were the case you would have thought the lower value cars would still have a few people who had a privileged attitude who didn’t end up “making it”, who didn’t stop for the pedestrians, kind of like a anti survivorship bias.
Maybe many of the people in the higher end cars couldn’t actually afford them and it was all on credit, and they were just narcisists who think they deserve nicer stuff than “normal people” and therefore also that they don’t have to stop for pedestrians?
Or maybe it was as simple as the evidence suggests, as people climb up the rung of society, some pervasive mindset creeps in that they are better than everyone else and can therefore ignore certain rules of both the law and societal norms.
It would also be interesting to run the same experiment in a less meritocratic minded society – anywhere that isn’t the US for a good start.
Obviously I don’t have the answers to any of the above, but it was interesting to think about and seemed a very relevant podcast to listen to right around the time the DC story was breaking.
What do you lot think?
No doubt there must be some DC h8-ers out there right now that want to air their views? Would be interested to hear all points of view as usual! 😀
Notes:
- Almost certainly true regardless of this current situation ↩
- Actually I saw Philip Schofield mention my first example above and I’m sure Piers Morgan has spouted off about it at some point but he just likes a rant and being a dick to people he’s interviewing. I’m fairly certain he would never actually make a coherent larger picture point about any of this. ↩
- If there is one link you read from this post please make it that one, it’s incredible ↩
Discussion (14) ¬
Great article TFS. I just wish that the media would hunt out good news stories. That the lovies and darlings of the media would realise that not everyone is sat at home with nothing to do as is portrayed. How awesome would it be if they were looking for solutions to get some normalcy back rather than looking for people to blame and reasons why it will not work.
Thanks for the kind words!
The Low info diet is the way to go obviously but it’s hard not to get drawn into reading certain things and/or hearing about them when it blows up like this one did.
And also it’s still annoying that even if you switch off you know the majority of other people are still getting sh!te beamed into their heads near 24/7.
It would be very nice if the media played a more positive role in our society, I agree!
Good piece. I couldn’t agree more. Of course, as the architect of the Brexit campaign, DC has had a bullseye on his back for a while, and the left-wing media would not lose a golden opportunity such as this for some points scoring. My opinion, *if* he potentially broke the law, let him have his day in court where he can argue his case. Innocent until proven guilty. But of course – he has not been prosecuted…
Cheers Codefreeze!
Innocent until proven guilty… haha yea right. It’s more like hurl sh!t and then apologise (or more usually duck out of apologies if anyway possible) later 🙂
I remember a couple of days before lockdown started I walked past a packed pub and thought that’s clearly not a good idea, these people really should have more sense. But then within weeks of lockdown starting it had gone the other way, people moralising about staying home, celebrities singing songs about it and so on. The amount of judgment going on on Facebook was insufferable.
To be honest there were some days when we stretched the rules, I’d go for a run in the morning and then my girlfriend would want to go for a walk in the evening, so we’d take a shopping bag and go past a corner shop so we could class it as an essential trip. I don’t think doing that was any worse than the people packing out the pub when they knew they shouldn’t (actually it’s a lot better IMO).
So I think there is some confusion over DC. A lot of people have internalised the ‘stay home’ moral message to the extent that it overrules common sense and even what the law allows. To be fair, I do think DC is stretching the truth, I mean going for a drive to a scenic spot to check he was safe to drive is a flimsy excuse and very convenient. But while we might be suspicious of his story I don’t think we can disprove what he’s saying either and therefore IMO legally he’s clean. And I’m speaking as someone who’s hates the Tory party.
And another thing! All these people clapping and banging their pots and pans on Thursdays, how many of them voted Tory in December? Quite a lot I suspect. My sister works in the NHS and hasn’t had a proper pay rise in years. I would say if you really care about the NHS and NHS workers then maybe don’t vote Tory, the party that has systematically underfunded the NHS and underpaid it’s workers. Let’s hope if there’s one good thing that comes out if this it’s that our children will have learnt to respect the NHS and will make better decisions when they grow up than the current electorate.
Hi Wephway,
Long time no hear – lovely to get a comment from you and hope you are well?
I mean I can’t really add to that, I agree with literally 100% of what you’ve written! The clapping for NHS irony was not lost on me either, as well as all the “aren’t shop workers and delivery drivers hero’s” type of thing from the people who couldn’t give a sh!t that they get paid peanuts.
The Daily Mash couldn’t have put it any better 🙂
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/the-more-essential-your-work-the-less-you-get-paid-thems-the-rules-says-capitalism-20200409195289
At last! A sensible view re. DC. I don’t really care about what he did – I’ve tried to keep to the rules but, like you, have found some of them ridiculous and have broken a few ! I ‘m looking forward to having a couple of close friends round in the back garden, legally on Monday!
Good post- one thing that bothers me is people leaving their engines idling and parking on pavements.
My observation is that the mkre expensive the car the more common the practice.
Gentleman’s Family Finances recently posted…Month-end April 2020
Good post TFS. My own opinion on this is that it was likely a Minor breach, especially the castle part and he was silly to do this given his position and the extra eyes potentially that would be on him. But the fact is, I have been annoyed with the witch hunt, the constant questions when there are far more important things for the media to ask the government about, the constant negativity.
As for breaking the rules, he is human like anyone else but as said earlier, He should have been more careful and I fully get the anger from people for sure. Just wish it wouldn’t have been the only thing talked about for so long…
Chris – TFJ
Its down to the normal quote: ‘Bad news sells’ and as others have said, the media are on a witch hunt for DC and anyone else in the public eye.
If you put yourself on a public pedestal expect to be a target for the media and been shot at as they want to pull you off it. Its all the same, whatever public role you do – be that celebrity, politician, corporate big cat.
They help to raise you onto the pedestal then spend all their time trying to knock you off it.
One thing reading the article and comments – it never was illegal to go out more than once a day for exercise. The guidance was yes you should go out once (I think Michael Gove put some suggestions around it) but the legislation (in England) didn’t stipulate the number of times you could go out. Also there was no limit on the number of times you could leave the house for a valid reason: https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-10/how-do-the-coronavirus-lockdown-rules-differ-across-the-uk/
Re DC I think it’s hard to know if we have the truth. It’s certainly doesn’t seem great if his wife rocked up at A&E in a different part of the country, possibly whilst suffereing with Covid?
Great to see a new post! 🙂
I’m heartened to see you all in the UK are handling the COVID crisis and lockdown about as well as us in the US, as to say, not too well! Truly, we are long lost brothers. Or perhaps it’s a long lost parental relationship? No matter, it’s dysfunctional.
PS: I’m not so sure the US is truly more meritocratic. We like to think so though!
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‘The media’ don’t exist as a monolithic body and it’s pointless to discuss them as though they do. If you don’t like what you’re getting, it’s never been easier to find a more acceptable view elsewhere. But surely one role of a free media is to hold powerful people to account. Having lived in China for years, I am extremely keen to maintain a media which is allowed some freedom to call the powerful out on their bullshit. I would suggest that the reason DC got such a rough ride over his indiscretion is that his actions, and his reactions to them once they were exposed, suggest that he is an arrogant prick who exactly embodies the privilege and entitlement that he has made a career out of complaining about in others.