UK PM aide’s lockdown breach: Junior min quits
London, May 26: A junior minister in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet resigned from his post on Tuesday in protest against the UK Prime Minister’s support of his top aide, Dominic Cummings, over a perceived breach of the strict stay-at-home Covid-19 lockdown rules.
Johnson’s embattled Chief Strategy Adviser faced a volley of hostile questions from the media on Monday evening when Downing Street took the unusual step for a staffer to address his own press conference amid growing anger from all sides of the political spectrum, including Johnson's own Conservative Party.
One of the many Tory members of Parliament voicing their concern, Under Secretary of State for Scotland Douglas Ross, decided to step down from government, saying Cummings’ interpretation of a 400-km drive to his parents’ home at the peak of the crisis was not shared by the majority of people.
“While the intentions may have been well meaning, the reaction to this news shows that Mr Cummings’ interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked,” he said in his resignation letter, made public on social media. “I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government.
“I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right,” Ross said.
Meanwhile, a Downing Street spokesperson said, “the prime minister would like to thank Douglas Ross for his service to government and regrets his decision to stand down as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland.”