Quote Originally Posted by Enoch the Red View Post
Again, and bear with me because I know some people don't like this analogy, but it helps me understand. If this was Dominic getting away with speeding, are we saying that because millions of other people have gotten ticketed for speeding anyone who has sped and not received a ticket is getting special treatment if it later comes out that they had traveled faster than the posted speed limit? If a video came out of Mark Meadows going 75 in a 70, and it was downplayed by the president, ("fake news," I'm sure) and he said he accepted his stated explanation of having to go faster because he needed to go to the restroom, and Bill Barr shrugged and said, "Guess he got away with it," are we really saying that is special treatment? I know social mores and norms regarding social distancing are in flux, but it seems within the purview of Johnson not to require resignation for an offense that isn't even a misdemeanor - likely a civil infraction (I'm not sure either term is valid in Britain). That doesn't make him any less of an entitled jerk, and some level of public backlash seems reasonable if he was an architect of the rules, but politics are full of entitled jerks.
A more appropriate analogy is that the most senior govt. advisor decided to go off and have a barbecue after he and his govt. enacted a ban on barbecues—violations of which has landed 17,000 people with hefty fines—because of devastating wildfires all across the nation that have seen tens of thousands of people dead, and many more severely injured.

If he offered to pay the fine would that be a good compromise?
No, of course it would not, because this is a matter of credibility. He has expressed no genuine remorse—he's only shown contempt; nor has the govt. acknowledged how grave an error of judgement this was—not merely the acts themselves, but also his subsequent response, when he was busted. Credibility is not something you regain by coughing up some money—which would, in this case, be an insignificant sum for Cummings—when you're caught. There are many perfectly legal and non-corrupt acts that may prompt a resignation, such as a judge being caught using utterly repugnant racial slurs. People who openly show that they believe themselves to be above the laws and norms that bind those they're supposed to represent, are generally not fit for public office.