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Watch: How Dominic Cummings' contempt made us feel

Director Mark Cousins has turned Fintan O'Toole's words into a powerful statement of public anger: 'This Violation' (7.5 mins).

This is director Mark Cousins' film of an article by Fintan O'Toole: 'Cummings’ contempt for lockdown rules makes the public feel like fools'.

It was written after Dominic Cummings – controversial senior adviser to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson – was accused of breaking coronavirus lockdown rules. For days the media was full of angry comments from people who had, for the good of society at large, accepted the restrictions that Cummings appeared to have flouted.

The text is read by Fintan O'Toole, Gill Moreton, Leni Rademacher, Asheq Akhtar, Mat Whitecross, Catherine Mack, E.M. Powell, Roslyn Law, Lubnar Kerr, Majinder Virk, Jon Savage, Asmamaw Sisay, Clara Glynn, Sonali Bhattacharya, Irvine Welsh, Yung Kha, Grainne O'Mahoney, Ian Adair, Sam Haillay, John Archer, Dave Anderson, Alastair Phillips, Karine Polwart, Jenny Leask, Darrell Butler, Barnaby Taylor, David Litchfield, Sagar Rathod, Jean Sadler, Victoria Blair, Lynne Jones, Gair Dunlop, Colin Richards, Huw Williams, Mark Cousins, Dhivya Jane Chetty and Jane Heslop.

Thanks to Fintan O'Toole and The Guardian for their permission to publish this.

openDemocracy Author

Mark Cousins

Mark Cousins is Director of General Studies at the Architectural Association.

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openDemocracy Author

Fintan O’Toole

Fintan O’Toole is op-ed columnist and literary editor of The Irish Times. Born in Dublin in 1958, he has been Leonard L Milberg lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton, drama critic of the Sunday Tribune, The New York Daily News and The Irish Times, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and literary advisor to the Abbey Theatre. He also edited Magill magazine. His most recent books are 'A History of Ireland in 100 Objects'; 'Up the Republic!'; 'Enough is Enough'; 'Ship of Fools'; and ' Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain'.

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