CORONA CRISIS Wood you Cummings in Calls for PM ‘2nd trip breach’ to sack top aide
Why PM dare not fire him
BORIS Johnson is standing by his most trusted adviser despite his flouting of the lockdown rules – because he cannot afford not to.
No10 will pull out all the stops to save Dominic Cummings. Played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a TV drama, he is the man who put Johnson where he is and knows all the secrets about how he got there.
It can ill afford to risk casting out such a loose and potentially venomous cannon with no respect for authority or sense of loyalty.
But the pressure is immense. The Cummings row makes a mockery of the lockdown advice.
For the sake of one powerful individual, ministers appear ready to sacrifice all the good that the lockdown has achieved.
ut there has always been one rule for Dominic Cummings and another for a world he largely despises.
It is the first principle of a man described by David Cameron as a “career psychopath” that he is right and everybody else wrong.
The “evil genius” doesn’t need to worry. He is imbedded in the DNA of the Boris premiership project.
It was Dominic’s“take Back Control” slogan which won the Brexit referendum.
It was Dominic who framed last year’s election campaign with the winning “Get Brexit Done” mantra.
It is to Dominic that Boris perhaps should be most grateful to for his 80-seat majority and the demolition of Labour’s “red wall” in the North.
On top of that, it’s Dom who knows where the bodies are buried. Not least because he put a lot of them there himself.
In his own words, he’s “not Tory, libertarian, populist or anything else”.
Just Cummings.
DOMINIC Cummings was seen flouting Covid-19 lockdown rules a SECOND time to visit his parents more than 250 miles away, the Sunday People can reveal.
The Prime Minister’s controversial top aide was spotted with his wife in Houghall Woods, near the family’s Durham home, two weeks after the first time he was sighted breaching the strict regulations.
Walkers were shocked at the “double standards” when they spotted him so far from London at the height of the lockdown on April 19. He casually remarked on how pretty the bluebells were.
Mr Cummings is now under pressure to resign – with MPS, the public and a Police and Crime Commissioner calling for him to be sacked.
It came as the Government announced 282 more people had died with Covid-19 since Friday, bringing the total to 36,675.
Mr Cummings, 48, had been photographed in Downing Street when he returned to work on April 14 following his own battle with the virus.
Chaos
The Government was thrown into chaos yesterday when it emerged Boris
Johnson’s chief-of-staff broke lockdown rules to self-isolate with his family in the North East of
England.
Downing Street previously said he needed his relatives to help with childcare after he and his wife, Mary
Wakefield, fell ill.
But the claims were mired in confusion after it emerged the couple continued to look after their four-year-old son themselves in Durham.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer
Dr Jenny Harries cast further doubt when she told the No 10 briefing the only exception to rules was if there was “extreme risk to life”.
A joint investigation by the People and Observer can today reveal Mr Cummings was spotted for a second time apparently breaching the rules. A local couple, who did not want to be named, claimed they saw him while walking in Houghall Woods, near his parents’ home, on April 19.
One said: “We were shocked to see him because the last time we did was earlier in the week in Downing Street.
“We thought, ‘He’s not supposed to be here during the lockdown’. We thought, ‘What double standards, one rule for him as a senior adviser to the Prime Minister and another for the rest of us’.” The witness said Mr Cummings was with a woman believed to be wife Mary in the woods, famed for bluebells. The locals stepped back, in line with social distancing, to let them pass and Mr Cummings said: “Aren’t the bluebells lovely?”
Mr Johnson is now under growing pressure from opposition leaders to sack him. Ministers insisted Mr Cummings “stayed put” at his family home in Durham for his 14-day self-isolation.
But Robin Lees, 70, a retired chemistry teacher from Barnard Castle, claimed he saw Mr Cummings and his family
walking by the River Tees in the town before getting into a car around lunchtime on April 12. Although he may have completed his self-isolation, strict lockdown rules were still in place and they were 30 miles from his parents’ home.
Mr Lees also claimed he spotted Mr Cummings’ car parked on The Sills in the town. He said: “I went home and told my wife but we thought he must be in London. I remembered the car number plate. I was a bit gobsmacked to see him, because I know what he looks like.
“They looked as if they’d been for a walk by the river. I was convinced it was him and it didn’t seem right because I assumed he’d be in London. Of course he should resign. [Scottish chief medical officer Catherine] Calderwood resigned after being stupid by visiting her second home, [Government scientist] Professor Ferguson didn’t even go anywhere.
“They didn’t do anything nearly as irresponsible as Cummings. It just beggars belief to think you could actually drive when the advice was stay home.”
When asked if he was going to consider resigning after yesterday’s allegations, Mr Cummings said: “Obviously not.”
The architect of the Vote Leave campaign added: “You guys are probably as right about that as you are about Brexit.”
When challenged by a reporter who said his decision to self-isolate in Durham