WHY does #Cummings story matter? WHAT does it obscure?

REAL story is huge transfer of govt assets to private companies that he's overseeing under cover of pandemic while restructuring Cabinet Office into his & #Gove's private fiefdom.

VIA: Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla

We have no insight into these contracts which did not go to tender but to Cummings's friends & associates. Including a massive transfer of our most private, intimate NHS data. The privatisation of essential state functions is happening in real time in almost complete darkness
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@SharonStoned70 - Post on #BITP under this pic. You've got a brief overview. Source: Carole Cadwalladr /
@carolecadwalla / Guardian & Observer writer.

@SharonStoned70 => POST THIS as connecting article => #SackCummings

£940 million in funding towards the No. 10 chief advisor’s pet project of a US-style research agency — #ARPA. https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/20/dominic-cummings-billion-dollar-brainchild/

Because none of this is acceptable. And which came first?The decision to centralise UK's response to COVID-19 which so many public health experts say is at the heart of its failure? Or the private contracts to the friends of ministers & advisors?
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Cummings made absolutely clear his conditions for working in govt were smashing civil service & rebuilding in his image & creating British 'ARPA' - an AI-driven research facility. That's exactly what he's doing right now in Cabinet Office with Gove his long-time co-conspirator
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Sure, the hypocrisy & entitlement of Cummings is breathtaking but there's a far darker story that it obscures & it's why the focus must be on Johnson now & his decision to throw weight of his office - statement from No 10 - behind him.
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7/ There's so much more to say about this. And how it is eclipsing the news we learned yesterday that government is ignoring its own scientists. But job of holding both Cummings & No 10 to account is in hands of journalists who rely every day on Cummings & No 10 as 'sources'
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#SackCummings

£940 million in funding towards the No. 10 chief advisor’s pet project of a US-style research agency — #ARPA. https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/20/dominic-cummings-billion-dollar-brainchild/

There's so much misogyny directed at @bbclaurak
who mostly does extraordinarily difficult job with grace & professionalism. But 'lobby' system of embedding journalists in the heart of government is a busted flush & any serious society would undertake an honest review of it
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