Cummings claims that both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton spoke of the First Amendment as "a historic mistake that must be fixed." I didn't need to check to know that wasn't true – it would be instant political suicide – and sure enough, they never said that. Makes it harder to trust him on the other stuff.
But he's built his entire post-politics career on expressing disbelief at the stupidity of the things that senior people supposedly said in Downing Street while he was there. The one time he expresses disbelief at the stupidity of something said *in public*, so we can check, it turns out they didn't say that (instead people sort of in the same faction said things that were sort of similar; in the Kerry case, he's clearly talking about "implementing change" in the sense of getting things done in the face of opposition, not changing the Constitution). So are we still supposed to believe Cummings' very detailed stories about how much cleverer he was than all these people he has burning grudges against?
Don't be disingenuous. Cummings is clearly saying that talking in the terms that Kerry and Clinton did would have been unthinkable not long ago. It doesn't matter what Kerry was actually talking about, the significance is that he felt comfortable talking in terms that he wouldn't previously.
I couldn’t find where Dominic Grieves said DC should be in prison, driven out of politics. Such a talented guy but if you have to fact-check half the claims….
Thanks. But that quote was Grieve saying that the Benn Act was the law and what might happen if the PM defied the law. That seems far from the “they were calling us fascists who should be in gaol” (I’m paraphrasing). Seems a stretch - what am I missing? DC claims DG said he should be driven out of politics and put in gaol.
Cummings claims that both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton spoke of the First Amendment as "a historic mistake that must be fixed." I didn't need to check to know that wasn't true – it would be instant political suicide – and sure enough, they never said that. Makes it harder to trust him on the other stuff.
I think he’s conflating a few things, forgivably in my view! Kerry referred to the 1A as a major block to combating disinformation online and said the Democrats should seek to win power and implement change. Clinton has separately talked about jailing people for propaganda and repealing Section 230. In wider US progressive circles, there are more explicit uses of “mistake” framing e.g., https://progressive.org/latest/was-the-first-amendment-a-mistake-lueders-20250804/, https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/153/3/105/123987/Thinking-the-Unthinkable-about-the-First-Amendment, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/opinion/supreme-court-netchoice-free-speech.html.
But he's built his entire post-politics career on expressing disbelief at the stupidity of the things that senior people supposedly said in Downing Street while he was there. The one time he expresses disbelief at the stupidity of something said *in public*, so we can check, it turns out they didn't say that (instead people sort of in the same faction said things that were sort of similar; in the Kerry case, he's clearly talking about "implementing change" in the sense of getting things done in the face of opposition, not changing the Constitution). So are we still supposed to believe Cummings' very detailed stories about how much cleverer he was than all these people he has burning grudges against?
Don't be disingenuous. Cummings is clearly saying that talking in the terms that Kerry and Clinton did would have been unthinkable not long ago. It doesn't matter what Kerry was actually talking about, the significance is that he felt comfortable talking in terms that he wouldn't previously.
I couldn’t find where Dominic Grieves said DC should be in prison, driven out of politics. Such a talented guy but if you have to fact-check half the claims….
I believe you're looking for https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/07/boris-johnson-could-trigger-constitutional-crisis-over-brexit-law, see quote from Grieve near the bottom.
Thanks. But that quote was Grieve saying that the Benn Act was the law and what might happen if the PM defied the law. That seems far from the “they were calling us fascists who should be in gaol” (I’m paraphrasing). Seems a stretch - what am I missing? DC claims DG said he should be driven out of politics and put in gaol.