Wife: I had it and then he got it
Dominic Cummings’ journalist wife wrote a detailed account of how the pair were stricken by Covid-19 – but never mentioned they were not at their London home but 260 miles away in Durham.
Mary Wakefield, writing in the Spectator magazine where she works, said she got ill first, her husband rushed home to look after her but then, a day later, he too began feeling “weird”. Ms Wakefield then details their respective virus experiences but never mentions the family had decamped north. Ms Wakefield says: “My version of the virus began with a nasty headache and a grubby feeling of unease, after which I threw up on the bathroom floor.”
She goes on to say: “My husband did rush home to look after me. But 24 hours later, he said ‘I feel weird’ and collapsed. I felt breathless, sometimes achy, but Dom couldn’t get out of bed. Day in, day out for 10 days he lay doggo with a high fever and spasms that made the muscles lump and twitch in his legs. He could breathe, but only in a limited, shallow way.” Cummings was seen rushing through Downing Street on March 27 to get home to his wife, and on the 31st of the month he was in Durham, the day when police visited his family’s home to explain the lockdown restrictions that Mr Cummings had helped design. Former Health Secretary Alex Neil MSP said the omissions from the article seem significant and suggest the couple knew they had broken the rules: “I’ve seen Dominic Cummings’ reaction to what he has done on television and there is not a shred of contrition. It speaks volumes that his wife made no reference whatsoever to Durham in her piece.
“The very fact that they have kept this hushed up tells us they both knew they were breaching all the rules and they’ve made a complete farce of everything the UK Government have been saying.”