PM’s top aide Dominic Cummings caught breaching coronavirus lockdown for Durham trips
Just weeks after scientific adviser was busted meeting lover, another top aide to Boris Johnson has been caught out.
Boris Johnson’s authority has come under extraordinary scrutiny in a political scandal involving his Svengali-like chief Adviser Dominic Cummings which threatens to undermine the government’s coronavirus strategy.
It has emerged that Mr Cummings took a 430km road trip, when possibly suffering from coronavirus, to stay near his parents in Durham, claiming the move was for child care, which has sparked a crisis of public confidence in the government.
Late Saturday night the Mirror reported Mr Cummings had returned to Durham for a second trip on April 19 after he had recovered from the virus and had been working in London. That second trip contravened official government advice at the time not to travel.
But as tone-deaf as Mr Cumming’s actions may have been, the resulting, almost incredulous response from key ministers lining up in concert to support him has been even more questionable.
The Health Minister Matt Hancock immediately supported Mr Cummings — the most powerful civil servant in the country — as did a host of other ministers from Michael Gove to Dominic Raab.
Not only has Mr Cummings ignored the government’s official declarations, his actions come after one of the scientific advisers, Professor Neil Ferguson whose suspect modelling demanded a full lockdown, was exposed having his married girlfriend visit him on at least two occasions during lockdown.
When Mr Cummings travelled to Durham on March 30, just days after the Prime Minister’s illness and six days after lockdown, people were only allowed outside to visit a doctor, obtain food or to exercise once a day. People over 70 were told to isolate indoors.
Mr Cumming’s wife had the virus at the time, and according to a Downing Street statement, Mr Cummings believed it was a high likelihood that he would himself become unwell, and it was essential that his young child could be properly cared for.
Downing Street said: ‘’“His sister and nieces had volunteered to help so he went to a house near to but separate from his extended family in case their help was needed. His sister shopped for the family and left everything outside.”
However the Downing Street statement is at odds with evidence from a Durham neighbour who spotted Mr Cummings in the back yard of the house of his parents, who are in their 70s, and who tipped off journalists in early April.
The Durham constabulary told the Guardian: “On Tuesday 31 March, our officers were made aware of reports that an individual had travelled from London to Durham and was present at an address in the city.
“Officers made contact with the owners of that address who confirmed that the individual in question was present and was self-isolating in part of the house.
“In line with national policing guidance, officers explained to the family the guidelines around self-isolation and reiterated the appropriate advice around essential travel.”
In what appeared to be a choreographed support from inside Downing Street, Mr Hancock immediately tweeted:”I know how ill coronavirus makes you. It was entirely right for Dom Cummings to find childcare for his toddler, when both he and his wife were getting ill.” Thereupon ministers such as foreign secretary Dominic Raab, senior minister Michael Gove, Mr Schapps, culture secretary Oliver Dowden all swung in behind supporting Mr Cummings.
Labour has demanded an urgent investigation saying:
“The British people have made important and painful sacrifices to support the national effort, including staying away from friends and family in times of need, ..it is therefore important that the Government can reassure the public that its most senior figures have been adhering to the same rules as everyone else. The British people do not expect there to be one rule for them and another rule for the Prime Minister’s most senior adviser.”
The Scottish Nationalist Party leader Ian Blackford said: “Millions of us have made huge sacrifices over the months to obey the rules, while Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser was breaking them. There cannot be one rule for the Tory Government and another for the rest of us.
“The excuses are not credible. There was absolutely nothing in the list of reasons under the law for leaving the house that allowed someone to travel the length of the country to stay with their parents, particularly not someone who was known to have the virus.”
All the while, Mr Johnson’s prime ministership is crumbling as once predictable Tory bulwarks have found his timorous response to the coronavirus pandemic, and his near invisible leadership, to be inadequate.
Just this week the government announced a two week quarantine for incoming arrivals — more than four months after Australia’s first quarantine measures, and after 36,000 people have died. Bizarrely, the move comes when parts of the country, including London, have been coronavirus-free for days and there were optimistic signs some travel and economic activity could resume to try and offset the most dramatic economic plunge more than 300 years – as much as 35 per cent of GDP.
The Spectator magazine, which Mr Johnson once used to edit, published one column describing him as unfit for the job of leading the country.
Wrote columnist Alex Massie: “The Prime Minister, whatever his other talents, is not actually up to the job of running the country in a moment such as this. I suspect they (the Cabinet) know this too and this leads them to a situation in which they decline to concede anything for fear that a single concession might topple the entire rickety edifice’’. Crucially the magazine, which also employs Mr Cumming’s wife Mary Wakefield as a commissioning editor, has called for Mr Cummings to go.
The right wing Telegraph newspaper, where Mr Johnson used to file weekly columns has also abruptly changed its tone, even twice allowing the Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer to write commentaries, including a front page patriotic commemoration of 75 years since VE Day.
On Saturday, Mr Cummings insisted his decision to take himself, his wife and their four year old son four hours’ drive away from London at the end of March was “reasonable and legal’’ behaviour, when the official advice was to stay at home and self-isolate. Mr Johnson allowed the Transport Secretary Grant Schapps to face Saturday’s daily press conference where he insisted: “The Prime Minister would have known he (Mr Cummings) was staying put, and he didn’t come out again until he was feeling better. He added “the Prime Minister provides Mr Cummings with his full support”.
An outraged public is still in lockdown after nine weeks. The measures are still extraordinarily tight, with only essential shops opened. Only last week rules were eased slightly to allow people to meet one parent, two metres apart in an open outdoor space like a park. Only on May 10 were people allowed to “drive to other destinations’’.
But many people now believe that the government’s stringent measures are absurd.
A You Gov snap poll showed three-quarters of people believe Mr Cummings did the wrong thing.
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