Reading between the lines, looks like Cummings basically got into a horrible situation and panicked. But his brand is so built on being a calm, calculating, ruthless figure that the line that would elicit most sympathy & (probably) come closest to the truth is unavailable to him

And so now we get the charade that it was all actually “part of the plan” and each of the constituent parts - no matter how improbable - must be made to flow through a chain of inevitable cause and effect built around his unquestionable judgement.

It also has the unfortunate side-effect of being an absolutely toxic message to give the public for morale and public health reasons.

I mean, in hindsight given events of past few days & what actually did/didn’t happen in/around Durham it is *obviously* regrettable that he chose to take the actions he did - & even if he can’t apologise for his decisions in the moment he clearly *can* express regret for result.

That he still chose not to today compromises the very core of his argument for why he ought to be above blame; namely that he is, in his view, a person of fundamentally sound judgement