Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling liked what she read when she took to Twitter and saw a British civil servant’s post slamming Boris Johnson.
The situation started when Dominic Cummings, the chief advisor for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, drove cross country to visit his parents while exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms.
This trip came while the nation was under a fairly strict lockdown, causing quite the stir since he was a government official. Johnson defended his advisor, and that led to someone in the civil service posting the critical tweet.
Civil Servant attacks government
According to reports, the civil servant tweeted that both Cummings’ trip and Johnson’s defense of it was wrong.
“Arrogant and offensive. Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?”
The tweet was removed, and the U.K. Cabinet Office released a tweet of its own. They called it an “unauthorized tweet” posted on a government channel and announced they are “investigating the matter.”
The good news is that someone was able to screencap it so the world could see.
Is it this one? pic.twitter.com/TG2y4XSTU2
— Sylvie Jacquemart (@MissSJacquemart) May 24, 2020
That caught the attention of Rowling, who responded herself, saying that she wants to know who posted it because when she finds out, she will personally give them “a year’s salary.”
When you find out who it was, let us know. I want to give them a year’s salary. https://t.co/D7DRlwcjty
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 24, 2020
Rowlings has shown discontent with the government in her home country for a long time now. She called Cummings’ actions “indefensible hypocrisy.”
Dominic Cummings’ explanation
According to Dominic Cummings, the reason he left was that he was exercising judgment. He said that his wife was ill and that they had to get their child to someone to care for it, calling it “exceptional circumstances.”
“I don’t regret what I did and as I said, I think reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do in those circumstances but I think what I did was actually reasonable.”
That set Rowlings off even more. She said Cummings’ wife’s illness, and the fact they have a child is not “exceptional” circumstances, which is the only purpose of allowing travel. She called these problems “commonplace.”
She also compared it to the fact that no law says, “JK Rowling specifically can’t steal dogs,” so that means she should be able to steal a dog and get away with it.
'The legal rules inevitably do not cover all circumstances, including those that I found myself in.' – Dominic Cummings
Your wife was ill, you thought you were infectious and you've got a kid. Those circumstances are not exceptional. They're commonplace.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 25, 2020
J.K. Rowling also laughed at people threatening to burn Harry Potter books based on her comments, insinuating that she won’t lose any royalties once they are burned.
God, I hope you don't, because whenever somebody burns a Potter book the royalties vanish from my bank account.
And if the book's signed, one of my teeth falls out. pic.twitter.com/nD3fW7TpZn— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 25, 2020
Rowling has been in the news lately for many things that have nothing to do with her books and career. She caused controversy last year when she tweeted support for Maya Forstater, a researcher who lost her job over comments concerning biological sex.