CORONA CRISIS AIDE AND Boris backs chief of staff Cummings despite top cop saying he should be sacked for lockdown ‘criminality’
BORIS Johnson yesterday threw his full support behind lockdown renegade Dominic Cummings.
But the PM sent minister Grant Shapps out to defend his special adviser after it emerged Mr Cummings took his family 260 miles to be near his parents’ home to isolate themselves with coronavirus.
The Transport Secretary was unable to say whether Mr Johnson knew that Mr Cummings, 48, had whisked his wife Mary and four-year-old son Alexander to a property in County Durham.
The family, who have a house in London, decided to self-isolate in the North after both were diagnosed with Covid-19.
Last night a local police and crime commissioner called for Mr Cummings – who takes part in crucial meetings of the Government’s scientific coronavirus advice group Sage – to be sacked from No10.
Kim Mcguinness said: “Travelling 260 miles with a deadly infectious disease is a level of irresponsibility so dangerous it is at the point of criminality.”
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was in lockdown, but of course the PM was also unwell during the same period.” Mr Shapps was speaking at the daily corona briefing as it was revealed the number of deaths has risen by 282 to 36,675.
England’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries would not be drawn on individual cases, but said that anyone with symptoms should stay home unless death was the likely alternative. Labour, the Lib Dems and SNP wrote to Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill demanding a full inquiry into whether the top Downing Street aide breached lockdown rules.
Labour’s shadow cabinet office minister Rachel Reeves said: “It is vital that the Government can reassure the public that senior figures have been adhering to the same rules as everyone else.”
Mr Johnson will this week be forced to answer questions on whether Mr Cummings broke lockdown before Parliament’s most senior MPS. He has finally agreed to appear before the Commons liaison committee at 4pm on Wednesday after dodging coming before it ever since he became PM last July. It is Parliament’s most powerful committee made up of the chairs of all the other select committees.
He will have to face the likes of ace interrogators from Labour, Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn and Chris Bryant, and former ministers he fired on becoming PM – Karen Bradley, Caroline Nokes and Greg Clark.
To stop the PM getting a savaging No10 broke with convention and put in its own liason committee chair, Johnson supporter Sir Bernard Jenkin.
But a senior Tory close to the committee said: “Bernard is trying to vet the questions to be put to the PM so he gets