Regulation 6

I have been doing something that is open to anyone with an internet connection - I have read the Coronavirus Regulations that have, in the context of Dominic Cummings, got the commentariat and various legislators so exercised. If more of the fuckwit journos and politicos had bothered to do this then we might be enjoying (probably the wrong verb but sod it I'm on a roll) a rather better debate about that drive to Durham that the Boy Cummings saw fit to take. The only issue on which we have clarity is that there are a lot of people in our political and journalistic elite who utterly detest Cummings. Plain and simple they loathe the man, blame him for Brexit and Boris' mini-landslide. By the way we haven't heard the end of Brexit just yet - there are still people (take the sanctimonious windbag Ed Davey) getting themselves in trim for one last attempt to confound the will of the people. We can safely leave that for another day.

Anyway back to those Regulations. Here are the relevant facts and pertinent questions - trust me, I'm a lawyer:

• The Regulation states baldly, 'During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.'
• The Regulation then has thirteen sub-clauses which list examples of what will constitute a reasonable excuse.
• Those thirteen sub-clauses are not intended as an exhaustive list - there can clearly be other unspecified examples of reasonable behaviour. It is into this unspecified category that Cummings asserts his behaviours fit. That assertion is his right. It is the right of anyone else caught up in this wretched pandemic (so that means all of us) to attempt to exploit what lazy journalese calls this 'loophole'.
• So the two proper questions it seems to me are these: (i) was that initial 260 mile jaunt to Durham reasonable in the context of Cumming's precise situation vis-a-vis childcare? (ii) (and this I think is the more difficult one for Cummings) was that shorter excursion to Barnard Castle also reasonable in all the circumstances?

That's it - simple. If you think that these questions merit the public expense of judicial determination then you differ from me. That is your right. As to the crap about public opinion well, I'm sorry, that's irrelevant garbage as is the call for some sort of government enquiry - what a waste of resource. As to whether Cummings should resign (or be sacked) because he has breached some invisible 'spirit' (more lazy journalese) of the law, well that is a purely political question which we can safely leave to the political class as they roll around the whole bloody mess of them in the gutter.

One final biblical thought - those who live by the sword, die by the sword.