UK PM FACES MORE QUESTIONS OVER SUPPORT FOR CUMMINGS
LONDON: Pressure continues to mount on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to fire his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, with polls showing voters think he broke lockdown rules and members of Parliament calling for him to go.
Johnson was to face an hour and a half of sustained questioning from the senior members of Parliament who make up the so-called Liaison Committee on Wednesday from 4pm London time. The subject is his handling of the coronavirus crisis, but the opening section was to be his relationship with Cummings.
In March, the aide drove his family 400km to his parents’ farm after his wife started to develop virus symptoms so that they could isolate there.
Government lockdown rules forbade people going to second homes to self-isolate, but Cummings argued that he and his wife feared that if they were both sick, no one in London would be able to care for their son. He said this was permitted under the rules.
But voters weary after months of lockdown in which they have been unable to visit family have responded with fury.
A JL Partners poll in Wednesday’s Daily Mail found 80% thought that Cummings had broken lockdown rules and 66% thought he should resign. A YouGov survey for the Times found the Conservative lead over the opposition Labour Party had fallen by 9% in a week.
Tuesday began with the resignation of a junior minister and then saw Conservative MP after Conservative MP criticising Cummings. Nearly 40 had done so by the end of the day.
“I have received more emails on this than on any other issue since being elected - many hundreds of messages from concerned constituents - and I join them in that view,” Elliot Colburn, a Tory MP, wrote in an open letter to Johnson.
“I feel it necessary to stress the importance of continued public trust and engagement with the measures being taken to overcome this crisis.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, answering questions at the government’s daily press conference Tuesday evening, said he understood public anger but believed “what Mr. Cummings did was within the guidelines.”