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UK government advisor caught out by Wayback machine

220 points by hermitcrab 6y ago

acqq 6y ago
Makes me really glad knowing that I donated to Internet Archive (Wayback machine is a part of it). Being able to catch lying politicians is really, really good return of investment: https://archive.org/donate/ https://archive.org/donate/ I really hope Internet Archive manages to keep what it is doing.
- LarvaFX 6y ago
  The Internet Archive is awesome!
ijustwannatosay 6y ago
Do they still delete stuff when the site removes access via robots.txt? Others can look at this example and later when they also need to do "history hacking" decide to get rid of this problem by removing themselves from the wayback machine. IMHO, if you are important enough to have a Wikipedia page, what you say publicly should be immutable.
- dwardu 6y ago
  If the site is hosted and funded using public funds not personal funds, then yes it should be immutable. Otherwise, he can do what he wants.
  - pmachinery 6y ago
    Not if he wants to cite it in an official capacity, as he did here.
- square_usual 6y ago
  Wikipedia page is a low bar, to be honest, and you'll end up in some sticky territory with the right to be forgotten.
CommanderData 6y ago
What a keeper. He'll be promoted soon no doubt. On top of the existing allegations I don't think this is significant.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  >What a keeper. He'll be promoted soon no doubt. He already seems to be running the UK. >On top of the existing allegations I don't think this is significant. Given that he is currently being accused of a very relaxed attitude to the truth, I think it is highly significant.
  - frobozz 6y ago
    Given that the PM and most of the cabinet seem to have a similar attitude to the truth, the only way this can be significant is if enough Tory MPs have enough spine to back a no confidence motion.
- tobylane 6y ago
  He appears to rank higher than the head of the civil service, previously the most important unelected job. He’s not a party member and is deeply unelectable, so he’ll never be a politician. I think this is his peak.
hermitcrab 6y ago
Dominic Cummings, the highly controversial government to the UK Prime Minister, has been caught modifying an old blog entry to try and make himself look cleverer than he is.
- jfk13 6y ago
  > the highly controversial government to the UK Prime Minister Not quite sure if that's a slip or a deliberate jab, but it's a great phrase!
- ovi256 6y ago
  >make himself look cleverer than he is Which is a pity because he's clever enough already. His blog post about existential threats was good enough, if long winded.
  - dynamite-ready 6y ago
    I'm not a fan of the man at all, but his blog is an interesting read. He's ideas about tech aren't exactly original, but his writing is detailed, and covers a lot of ground.
  - codeduck 6y ago
    High intelligence, execrable wisdom. Great mage, lousy Cleric or paladin.
- doublesCs 6y ago
  That's a lot less clickbaity because it's entirely expected.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I don't want to whataboutism - but I will because I think it's way worse... The WHO is literally still advising people not to wear masks: https://youtu.be/Ded_AxFfJoQ?t=33 https://youtu.be/Ded_AxFfJoQ?t=33 ...and I wish more people would be angry about it. /whataboutism
gorgoiler 6y ago
I make no comment on her politics, but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. It feels like she was the last of her kind, and it is governments of salesmen from here on in. If you encounter someone in your life who exhibits the culture of rule bending, bring technically correct, or trying to get away with something, then please hold them to a higher standard, especially if they have any kind of public role. The alternative is these double speaking wheeler dealers — in this example, one who is concocting a self serving interpretation of the lockdown rules — who break that most golden of all rules: do unto others as you would have done to yourself. Or as I like to say it — what if everyone behaved like you did?
- GordonS 6y ago
  I could never forgive her after her stint as home secretary, after she instituted additional mass surveillance and argued strongly for far more, as usual, all under the guise of "keeping us safe". But as much as I disliked her for her stance on surveillance, I do have to say that she had an impossible job in that limbo state after the brexit vote.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    But she was also exactly the wrong person to do that impossible job. As you say, the job was impossible, but the best chance of success would have required someone who was amazing at making deals (rather than trying to forge a course that ignores those you disagree with), getting people to compromise and come together, and the ability to question your own assumptions.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    It wasn't impossible, was it? Johnson has proven that. She used the same tactic as Boris Johnson by calling an election to try and get a big majority which could implement the referendum in the face of opposition parties who had voted for it but now refused to actually abide by it. She was such a poor politician she instead lost her majority and ended up in a limbo controlled by her opponents. She had a party filled with MPs who openly lied to the voters during her disastrous GE campaign, saying they'd implement the Brexit vote and then immediately turning around and doing everything they could to stop it once elected. She did nothing to get a grip on her party and just drifted, completely lost and weak. Then Boris Johnson stepped up. 1. He won the party leadership. 2. He kicked out a huge number of MPs (>40?) that had openly betrayed the voters, in some cases by switching after being elected to a party with the exact opposite of the policies they ran on. This plunged him deep into minority territory. 3. Parliament was filled with MPs who knew they'd lose the moment an election occurred due to those betrayals, and thus for the first time in history Johnson was faced with an opposition that kept voting against a chance to take power - the entire reason for their existence! Yet he still managed to get another general election. 4. He forced all of his prospective MPs to take a public oath that they'd actually implement what they said they'd implement in the party manifesto this time. He flushed out huge numbers of them that were untrustworthy. 5. He ran a strong campaign that gave him a huge majority. 6. He filled the cabinet with people who were committed to "getting brexit done" as he put it. He brought in a notoriously tough advisor who has already supposedly squashed multiple plots to reverse the referendum. 7. He replaced the Brexit negotiator with someone who is actually interested in negotiating and who believed in British independence, vs Theresa May's picks who didn't. Except for the first step these are all things Theresa May could have done but was too weak or politically un-astute to do. Hardly impossible, it just required political strength and leadership.
danmaz74 6y ago
It's great that tools like the Wayback machine are able to objectively prove attempts at lying like this one. I'm afraid, though, that the insane level of polarisation that politics has reached in this day will protect Cummings from any serious consequences: will his own faction care about this at all?
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  A Minister has just resigned over Cummings-gate: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52806086 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52806086
  - DangerousPie 6y ago
    That has nothing to do with this story though. The actual scandal is that Cummings broke the law to drive hundreds of miles to his parents during lockdown, with his wife (who had covid) and child in the car. And didn't even go directly, but stopped by a local beauty spot on the way back. And now he has been coming up with flimsy excuses for this for the last few days.
    - Bantros 6y ago
      He didn't break any law
      - DangerousPie 6y ago
        There are laws against leaving his house without a valid reason and driving with impaired eye sight, aren't there? https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1264955577471504386 https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/12649555774715043...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - DanBC 6y ago
        https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/made https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/ma... > 6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse. That has to be read in conjunction with the government and crown prosecution guidance about what reasonable means, and both the Government and the Crown Prosecutuion Service are very clear: that type of travel was not allowed.
sideshowb 6y ago
I really would have thought he'd know better than this. Without having researched Cummings in much detail, I certainly don't like the political causes he has supported but I have vaguely got the impression he might (despite his history degree) be quite intelligent at managing teams that make good use of data to drive policy - something which would appeal to the HN crowd. Does anyone know am I justified in thinking this, or is it all spinning smoke and mirrors?
- jfk13 6y ago
  Likewise without having researched in detail, my impression is that he's probably very intelligent at stuff like that, but at the same time, utterly unprincipled. So yes, I suppose he'd fit right in to the ad-tech world, if he does find himself wanting a career change.
- Kliment 6y ago
  It's all spinning mirrors and backroom smoke. Cummings is an accelerationist whose policy is destroy as much as possible so it can be rebuilt. There is no indication that he's in any way competent at making good use of data to inform policy - if anything he's good at finding people who can make data look about right to justify a policy he already likes.
  - random32840 6y ago
    I'm really not convinced he's ideologically driven. I imagine he makes a lot of money for doing what he does, given his track record.
- diroussel 6y ago
  Yes, he’s very much adept at manage teams who use data. In the run-up to the UK’s referendum on Brexit, his big insight was to realise that it was hard work to convince ‘remain’ (pro Europe) voters to vote leave. But instead he had the insight, setup the teams, and got the funding to launch a massive online social media campaign, to find people who had never voted and convince them to vote for Brexit. The models were computer simulations that were regularly calibrated from proxy measures. And then the models told the teams where to spend money on targeted Facebook advertising. Like telling young men in coastal communities that Brexit was better for fishing rights. Without Cummins’s insight Brexit would not have happened and Boris Johnson would not be prime minister of the UK.
DangerousPie 6y ago
To give some context, this is the guy who is currently at the centre of a scandal for breaking the law to drive hundreds of miles to his parents during lockdown, with his wife (who had covid) and child in the car. And didn't even go directly, but stopped by a local beauty spot on the way back. And now he has been coming up with flimsy excuses for this for the last few days, which the government (including the prime minister) desperately parrots lest they would have to admit that one of their team did something wrong.
- smcl 6y ago
  I’m confused why you aren’t voted up, this is an extremely accurate description that is pertinent to the story. To give our non-UK friends a bit more context (in case anyone thinks “flimsy excuses” is applying a bit of bias) he was caught going on a walk in a little town near his second home (itself a few hundred miles from where he probably should have been). His excuse was that he was feeling ill and had troubles with his eyesight so he decided to go for a (30 mile) drive to check ... I dunno, if he could see I guess? That thing you do when you have trouble with your eyesight, jump into a car and go for a drive. Update: the “upvote” point was because your comment was greyed out, and after I upvoted you were still greyed out, suggesting you were fairly deep in the -ve at that point
  - Cenk 6y ago
    Not only that, but the drive he took to “test his eye sight“ was with his wife and child in the car, they ended up driving to a local castle, and it happened to be on his wife’s birthday.
    - smcl 6y ago
      Good grief, his covid-positive wife was with him!?
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Yes. Him, his covid-19 positive wife, and their child drove 250 miles in the same car.
lhnz 6y ago
Is this as big a gotcha as people think it is? The article which he quoted in length in 2019 [0] hasn't been modified and did mention both SARS and Coronavirus. He's just amending the quote he took from it. Obviously the first time he quoted it, he didn't think it was relevant to show the example, so contracted it by hand to "[An example]" [1]. In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about the dangers of biolabs causing a global pandemic will either seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote [2]. This implies that in 2019, he had read the article and was aware of threats like coronavirus/SARS, but didn't think it was the important aspect of what he was discussing. So his crime here is a bit like rewriting your CV for a new job -- not lying about what you know or have done, but using different words that emphasize new aspects to the new audience. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/human-error-in-high-biocontainment-labs-a-likely-pandemic-threat https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/human-error-in-high-bioconta... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu... [2] https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-l...
- ArgyleSound 6y ago
  > In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about pandemics will seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote And that’s the problem isn’t it? He claims that he talked about the risks of Coronaviruses before the pandemic, and yet the only evidence is an article about biolab security (frankly not particularly relevant unless he’s insinuating that’s the origin of this virus too) amended well after the current pandemic began.
  - lhnz 6y ago
    An untouched quote from his article: > Experiments on viruses that could cause a > global pandemic killing many millions were > halted but were recently cleared to resume > and will be conducted in these ‘top > security’ labs. He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".
hedgew 6y ago
This seems like a hostile interpretation of what he said. Cummings said he had warned about the dangers of pandemics. The original archived version of his blog post obviously warns about pandemics. Archived version from 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu...
- chimprich 6y ago
  Cummings yesterday said that he'd specifically warned of the threat of /coronaviruses/ a year previously. "Last year I wrote about the possible threat of coronaviruses and the urgent need for planning." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-statement-speech-transcript-durham-full-text-read-lockdown-a9531856.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummi...
  - PuffinBlue 6y ago
    And a curious coincidence he made such a modification when he returned from Durham. Almost as if he knew he'd have to start creating justification for the trip. A coincidence indeed!
- dghf 6y ago
  The quote attributed to him (I've not seen his press briefing myself, so I can't say whether it's accurate) is this: > Last year I wrote about the possible threat of coronaviruses and the urgent need for planning. There are three key bits there: > I wrote The blog post is some 1800 words, two-thirds of which is a verbatim quote from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Once you taken away the leading epigraph from David Deutsch and the rather long title, there are barely 400 words of actual content from Cummings. > about the possible threat of coronaviruses In its original form, the post does not mention coronaviruses. The only pathogens mentioned are Ebola and various types of flu, and those only appear in the extensive quote from BAS. > and the urgent need for planning The only planning it refers to is greater security for laboratories studying dangerous pathogens, specifically the use of red teams to test the security of British research facilities. There is nothing about preparing for pandemics, whether stockpiling equipment, contingency plans for dealing with a pandemic, emergency powers legislation, determining criteria for imposing or lifting lockdowns, etc. Given that Cummings appears to be using this post as a refutation of the accusation that he initially favoured "herd immunity" as the strategy for dealing with COVID-19 in the UK, his representation of it seems a little disingenuous.
Bantros 6y ago
Frothing at the mouth
- smcl 6y ago
  What does this mean?
  - DangerousPie 6y ago
    I think it means it's pointless trying to argue with this user.
Bantros 6y ago
Glad you aren't my lawyer
- orwin 6y ago
  Sorry, could you explain this comment? Why would you be glad?
  - Bantros 6y ago
    Oh I would not be glad, as he holds a very narrow interpretation of the term "reasonable"
samizdis 6y ago
What has happened to this posting with respect to its HN listing? It was top of the front page an hour or so ago when I was reading the lively comment thread. Now, I can't see it on the first five pages; found it only by searching for "Wayback" filtered to last 24 hours. Does HN have a "hide" function, or demote to the darkest depths, and, if so, what triggers it?
- jfk13 6y ago
  My guess is that the comments are "lively" enough to have triggered the flamebait detector.
  - samizdis 6y ago
    I'd be fascinated to know how this apparent flamebait detector (assuming an algo, not a person) operates, but I note that the posting guidelines do say: . Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. and: > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for. So this has probably become over-lively. Shame, though, I had been enjoying it. Thanks for your explanation.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I don't have answer to your question, but it might just be that when you examine the details here, it just doesn't seem nearly as bad as the title suggests. He was indeed warning about pandemics in 2019. ...which is close enough for me. Looks like he added a tag about coronavirus, but there were cases where he mentioned prior coronavirus outbreaks, like SARS/MERS/etc...
  - samizdis 6y ago
    Yes, I understand that, but my query was purely about the mechanics of HN; I wasn't commenting on the validity or merit of the article in question. I've nothing to offer in that direction; disinterest born of overload is all I have on that.
hermitcrab 6y ago
BBC update: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059

220 points by hermitcrab 6y ago

acqq 6y ago

Makes me really glad knowing that I donated to Internet Archive (Wayback machine is a part of it). Being able to catch lying politicians is really, really good return of investment: https://archive.org/donate/ https://archive.org/donate/ I really hope Internet Archive manages to keep what it is doing.

LarvaFX 6y ago
The Internet Archive is awesome!

ijustwannatosay 6y ago

Do they still delete stuff when the site removes access via robots.txt? Others can look at this example and later when they also need to do "history hacking" decide to get rid of this problem by removing themselves from the wayback machine. IMHO, if you are important enough to have a Wikipedia page, what you say publicly should be immutable.

dwardu 6y ago
If the site is hosted and funded using public funds not personal funds, then yes it should be immutable. Otherwise, he can do what he wants.
- pmachinery 6y ago
  Not if he wants to cite it in an official capacity, as he did here.
square_usual 6y ago
Wikipedia page is a low bar, to be honest, and you'll end up in some sticky territory with the right to be forgotten.

CommanderData 6y ago

What a keeper. He'll be promoted soon no doubt. On top of the existing allegations I don't think this is significant.

hermitcrab 6y ago
>What a keeper. He'll be promoted soon no doubt. He already seems to be running the UK. >On top of the existing allegations I don't think this is significant. Given that he is currently being accused of a very relaxed attitude to the truth, I think it is highly significant.
- frobozz 6y ago
  Given that the PM and most of the cabinet seem to have a similar attitude to the truth, the only way this can be significant is if enough Tory MPs have enough spine to back a no confidence motion.
tobylane 6y ago
He appears to rank higher than the head of the civil service, previously the most important unelected job. He’s not a party member and is deeply unelectable, so he’ll never be a politician. I think this is his peak.

hermitcrab 6y ago

Dominic Cummings, the highly controversial government to the UK Prime Minister, has been caught modifying an old blog entry to try and make himself look cleverer than he is.

jfk13 6y ago
> the highly controversial government to the UK Prime Minister Not quite sure if that's a slip or a deliberate jab, but it's a great phrase!
ovi256 6y ago
>make himself look cleverer than he is Which is a pity because he's clever enough already. His blog post about existential threats was good enough, if long winded.
- dynamite-ready 6y ago
  I'm not a fan of the man at all, but his blog is an interesting read. He's ideas about tech aren't exactly original, but his writing is detailed, and covers a lot of ground.
- codeduck 6y ago
  High intelligence, execrable wisdom. Great mage, lousy Cleric or paladin.
doublesCs 6y ago
That's a lot less clickbaity because it's entirely expected.
koheripbal 6y ago
I don't want to whataboutism - but I will because I think it's way worse... The WHO is literally still advising people not to wear masks: https://youtu.be/Ded_AxFfJoQ?t=33 https://youtu.be/Ded_AxFfJoQ?t=33 ...and I wish more people would be angry about it. /whataboutism

gorgoiler 6y ago

I make no comment on her politics, but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. It feels like she was the last of her kind, and it is governments of salesmen from here on in. If you encounter someone in your life who exhibits the culture of rule bending, bring technically correct, or trying to get away with something, then please hold them to a higher standard, especially if they have any kind of public role. The alternative is these double speaking wheeler dealers — in this example, one who is concocting a self serving interpretation of the lockdown rules — who break that most golden of all rules: do unto others as you would have done to yourself. Or as I like to say it — what if everyone behaved like you did?

GordonS 6y ago
I could never forgive her after her stint as home secretary, after she instituted additional mass surveillance and argued strongly for far more, as usual, all under the guise of "keeping us safe". But as much as I disliked her for her stance on surveillance, I do have to say that she had an impossible job in that limbo state after the brexit vote.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  But she was also exactly the wrong person to do that impossible job. As you say, the job was impossible, but the best chance of success would have required someone who was amazing at making deals (rather than trying to forge a course that ignores those you disagree with), getting people to compromise and come together, and the ability to question your own assumptions.
- thu2111 6y ago
  It wasn't impossible, was it? Johnson has proven that. She used the same tactic as Boris Johnson by calling an election to try and get a big majority which could implement the referendum in the face of opposition parties who had voted for it but now refused to actually abide by it. She was such a poor politician she instead lost her majority and ended up in a limbo controlled by her opponents. She had a party filled with MPs who openly lied to the voters during her disastrous GE campaign, saying they'd implement the Brexit vote and then immediately turning around and doing everything they could to stop it once elected. She did nothing to get a grip on her party and just drifted, completely lost and weak. Then Boris Johnson stepped up. 1. He won the party leadership. 2. He kicked out a huge number of MPs (>40?) that had openly betrayed the voters, in some cases by switching after being elected to a party with the exact opposite of the policies they ran on. This plunged him deep into minority territory. 3. Parliament was filled with MPs who knew they'd lose the moment an election occurred due to those betrayals, and thus for the first time in history Johnson was faced with an opposition that kept voting against a chance to take power - the entire reason for their existence! Yet he still managed to get another general election. 4. He forced all of his prospective MPs to take a public oath that they'd actually implement what they said they'd implement in the party manifesto this time. He flushed out huge numbers of them that were untrustworthy. 5. He ran a strong campaign that gave him a huge majority. 6. He filled the cabinet with people who were committed to "getting brexit done" as he put it. He brought in a notoriously tough advisor who has already supposedly squashed multiple plots to reverse the referendum. 7. He replaced the Brexit negotiator with someone who is actually interested in negotiating and who believed in British independence, vs Theresa May's picks who didn't. Except for the first step these are all things Theresa May could have done but was too weak or politically un-astute to do. Hardly impossible, it just required political strength and leadership.

danmaz74 6y ago

It's great that tools like the Wayback machine are able to objectively prove attempts at lying like this one. I'm afraid, though, that the insane level of polarisation that politics has reached in this day will protect Cummings from any serious consequences: will his own faction care about this at all?

hermitcrab 6y ago
A Minister has just resigned over Cummings-gate: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52806086 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52806086
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  That has nothing to do with this story though. The actual scandal is that Cummings broke the law to drive hundreds of miles to his parents during lockdown, with his wife (who had covid) and child in the car. And didn't even go directly, but stopped by a local beauty spot on the way back. And now he has been coming up with flimsy excuses for this for the last few days.
  - Bantros 6y ago
    He didn't break any law
    - DangerousPie 6y ago
      There are laws against leaving his house without a valid reason and driving with impaired eye sight, aren't there? https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1264955577471504386 https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/12649555774715043...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - DanBC 6y ago
      https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/made https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/ma... > 6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse. That has to be read in conjunction with the government and crown prosecution guidance about what reasonable means, and both the Government and the Crown Prosecutuion Service are very clear: that type of travel was not allowed.

sideshowb 6y ago

I really would have thought he'd know better than this. Without having researched Cummings in much detail, I certainly don't like the political causes he has supported but I have vaguely got the impression he might (despite his history degree) be quite intelligent at managing teams that make good use of data to drive policy - something which would appeal to the HN crowd. Does anyone know am I justified in thinking this, or is it all spinning smoke and mirrors?

jfk13 6y ago
Likewise without having researched in detail, my impression is that he's probably very intelligent at stuff like that, but at the same time, utterly unprincipled. So yes, I suppose he'd fit right in to the ad-tech world, if he does find himself wanting a career change.
Kliment 6y ago
It's all spinning mirrors and backroom smoke. Cummings is an accelerationist whose policy is destroy as much as possible so it can be rebuilt. There is no indication that he's in any way competent at making good use of data to inform policy - if anything he's good at finding people who can make data look about right to justify a policy he already likes.
- random32840 6y ago
  I'm really not convinced he's ideologically driven. I imagine he makes a lot of money for doing what he does, given his track record.
diroussel 6y ago
Yes, he’s very much adept at manage teams who use data. In the run-up to the UK’s referendum on Brexit, his big insight was to realise that it was hard work to convince ‘remain’ (pro Europe) voters to vote leave. But instead he had the insight, setup the teams, and got the funding to launch a massive online social media campaign, to find people who had never voted and convince them to vote for Brexit. The models were computer simulations that were regularly calibrated from proxy measures. And then the models told the teams where to spend money on targeted Facebook advertising. Like telling young men in coastal communities that Brexit was better for fishing rights. Without Cummins’s insight Brexit would not have happened and Boris Johnson would not be prime minister of the UK.

DangerousPie 6y ago

To give some context, this is the guy who is currently at the centre of a scandal for breaking the law to drive hundreds of miles to his parents during lockdown, with his wife (who had covid) and child in the car. And didn't even go directly, but stopped by a local beauty spot on the way back. And now he has been coming up with flimsy excuses for this for the last few days, which the government (including the prime minister) desperately parrots lest they would have to admit that one of their team did something wrong.

smcl 6y ago
I’m confused why you aren’t voted up, this is an extremely accurate description that is pertinent to the story. To give our non-UK friends a bit more context (in case anyone thinks “flimsy excuses” is applying a bit of bias) he was caught going on a walk in a little town near his second home (itself a few hundred miles from where he probably should have been). His excuse was that he was feeling ill and had troubles with his eyesight so he decided to go for a (30 mile) drive to check ... I dunno, if he could see I guess? That thing you do when you have trouble with your eyesight, jump into a car and go for a drive. Update: the “upvote” point was because your comment was greyed out, and after I upvoted you were still greyed out, suggesting you were fairly deep in the -ve at that point
- Cenk 6y ago
  Not only that, but the drive he took to “test his eye sight“ was with his wife and child in the car, they ended up driving to a local castle, and it happened to be on his wife’s birthday.
  - smcl 6y ago
    Good grief, his covid-positive wife was with him!?
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Yes. Him, his covid-19 positive wife, and their child drove 250 miles in the same car.

lhnz 6y ago

Is this as big a gotcha as people think it is? The article which he quoted in length in 2019 [0] hasn't been modified and did mention both SARS and Coronavirus. He's just amending the quote he took from it. Obviously the first time he quoted it, he didn't think it was relevant to show the example, so contracted it by hand to "[An example]" [1]. In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about the dangers of biolabs causing a global pandemic will either seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote [2]. This implies that in 2019, he had read the article and was aware of threats like coronavirus/SARS, but didn't think it was the important aspect of what he was discussing. So his crime here is a bit like rewriting your CV for a new job -- not lying about what you know or have done, but using different words that emphasize new aspects to the new audience. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/human-error-in-high-biocontainment-labs-a-likely-pandemic-threat https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/human-error-in-high-bioconta... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu... [2] https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-l...

ArgyleSound 6y ago
> In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about pandemics will seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote And that’s the problem isn’t it? He claims that he talked about the risks of Coronaviruses before the pandemic, and yet the only evidence is an article about biolab security (frankly not particularly relevant unless he’s insinuating that’s the origin of this virus too) amended well after the current pandemic began.
- lhnz 6y ago
  An untouched quote from his article: > Experiments on viruses that could cause a > global pandemic killing many millions were > halted but were recently cleared to resume > and will be conducted in these ‘top > security’ labs. He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".

hedgew 6y ago

This seems like a hostile interpretation of what he said. Cummings said he had warned about the dangers of pandemics. The original archived version of his blog post obviously warns about pandemics. Archived version from 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu...

chimprich 6y ago
Cummings yesterday said that he'd specifically warned of the threat of /coronaviruses/ a year previously. "Last year I wrote about the possible threat of coronaviruses and the urgent need for planning." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-statement-speech-transcript-durham-full-text-read-lockdown-a9531856.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummi...
- PuffinBlue 6y ago
  And a curious coincidence he made such a modification when he returned from Durham. Almost as if he knew he'd have to start creating justification for the trip. A coincidence indeed!
dghf 6y ago
The quote attributed to him (I've not seen his press briefing myself, so I can't say whether it's accurate) is this: > Last year I wrote about the possible threat of coronaviruses and the urgent need for planning. There are three key bits there: > I wrote The blog post is some 1800 words, two-thirds of which is a verbatim quote from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Once you taken away the leading epigraph from David Deutsch and the rather long title, there are barely 400 words of actual content from Cummings. > about the possible threat of coronaviruses In its original form, the post does not mention coronaviruses. The only pathogens mentioned are Ebola and various types of flu, and those only appear in the extensive quote from BAS. > and the urgent need for planning The only planning it refers to is greater security for laboratories studying dangerous pathogens, specifically the use of red teams to test the security of British research facilities. There is nothing about preparing for pandemics, whether stockpiling equipment, contingency plans for dealing with a pandemic, emergency powers legislation, determining criteria for imposing or lifting lockdowns, etc. Given that Cummings appears to be using this post as a refutation of the accusation that he initially favoured "herd immunity" as the strategy for dealing with COVID-19 in the UK, his representation of it seems a little disingenuous.

Bantros 6y ago

Frothing at the mouth

smcl 6y ago
What does this mean?
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I think it means it's pointless trying to argue with this user.

Bantros 6y ago

Glad you aren't my lawyer

orwin 6y ago
Sorry, could you explain this comment? Why would you be glad?
- Bantros 6y ago
  Oh I would not be glad, as he holds a very narrow interpretation of the term "reasonable"

samizdis 6y ago

What has happened to this posting with respect to its HN listing? It was top of the front page an hour or so ago when I was reading the lively comment thread. Now, I can't see it on the first five pages; found it only by searching for "Wayback" filtered to last 24 hours. Does HN have a "hide" function, or demote to the darkest depths, and, if so, what triggers it?

jfk13 6y ago
My guess is that the comments are "lively" enough to have triggered the flamebait detector.
- samizdis 6y ago
  I'd be fascinated to know how this apparent flamebait detector (assuming an algo, not a person) operates, but I note that the posting guidelines do say: . Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. and: > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for. So this has probably become over-lively. Shame, though, I had been enjoying it. Thanks for your explanation.
koheripbal 6y ago
I don't have answer to your question, but it might just be that when you examine the details here, it just doesn't seem nearly as bad as the title suggests. He was indeed warning about pandemics in 2019. ...which is close enough for me. Looks like he added a tag about coronavirus, but there were cases where he mentioned prior coronavirus outbreaks, like SARS/MERS/etc...
- samizdis 6y ago
  Yes, I understand that, but my query was purely about the mechanics of HN; I wasn't commenting on the validity or merit of the article in question. I've nothing to offer in that direction; disinterest born of overload is all I have on that.

hermitcrab 6y ago

BBC update: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059