CUMMINGS OUT FIGHTING
Dominic Cummings says he has ‘no regrets’ as he comes clean about why he breached lockdown
DOMINIC Cummings came clean about why he breached lockdown, but added: “I’ve no regrets. I broke no rules.”
Boris Johnson’s top aide refused to express any regret or apologise after making a 260-mile trip to Durham during the peak of the pandemic.
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He said he had gone to his parents’ farm with his wife and four-year-old son to protect his family and insisted he had behaved “reasonably and legally” as he defied deafening calls to quit.
Mr Johnson stood by him just a few hours later — but he did express contrition.
The PM told No10’s daily press conference, held just yards from Mr Cummings’ grilling in the Downing Street rose garden: “I do regret the confusion and the anger and the pain people feel.”
During questioning, Mr Cummings confirmed reports that he made a 30-mile trip while in Durham last month to Barnard Castle in a second breach of the rules.
I don’t regret what I did. I think reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do . . . but I think what I did was actually reasonable in these circumstances.
Dominic Cummings
He said he and his wife left their car to sit by the river.
Mr Cummings said he had never considered resigning and told The Sun it was up to Mr Johnson whether or not he kept his job.
He said his only regret was not admitting having made the trip sooner after Friday’s media storm.
He said: “I don’t regret what I did. I think reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do . . . but I think what I did was actually reasonable in these circumstances.
“The rules made clear that if you are dealing with small children that can be exceptional circumstances. And I think that the situation that I was in was exceptional circumstances and the way that I dealt with it was the least risk to everybody concerned if my wife and I had both been unable to look after our four-year-old.”
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Mr Johnson said “people will have to make their minds up” about whether Mr Cummings’ actions were right or wrong.
But explaining why he has kept his aide in place, he added: “To me he came across as somebody who cared very much for his family and was doing best for his family.”
Asked whether he could change his mind if Mr Cummings’ actions continue to undermine the Government’s lockdown policy, he added: “I can’t give unconditional backing to anybody but I do not believe anybody in No10 has done anything to undermine our messaging.”
Mr Johnson also defended Mr Cummings’ decision not to tell him earlier of his Durham trip.
The PM, who was falling ill himself at the time, said: “I had a lot on my plate and really didn’t focus on the story until the story started to emerge in the last two days.”
Mr Cummings explained that he had “a few conflicting thoughts” before heading to stay at a cottage on his parents’ land.
He said it was a “very complicated, tricky situation”.
The aide said he was worried that if he and his wife both became seriously ill, there was no one in London to look after their young son without exposing them to Covid-19.
The Vote Leave organiser added: “If you have got a child that’s four years old and neither of you can look after him, the guidance doesn’t say, ‘You have just got to sit there’.
“So I think I have behaved reasonably given the circumstances and the different things I had to try and weigh up.”
He also said he did not feel safe at home.
He said: “I was subject to threats of violence. People came to my house shouting threats.
"I was worried about leaving my child at home at night. I thought the best thing was to drive to an isolated cottage on my father’s farm.”
He revealed that his son had been taken to hospital while he was self-isolating in Durham.
He said he made a “short trip” to Barnard Castle because Covid-19 had affected his eyesight and his wife did not want to risk the long drive back to London.
He added: “My wife was very worried, particularly as my eyesight seemed to have been affected by the disease.
"She did not want to risk a nearly 300-mile drive with our child given how ill I had been.
"We agreed we should go for a short drive to see if I could drive safely.”
The Sun Says
WHAT a stomach-churning and shameful debacle the screeching hate campaign against Dominic Cummings has been.
The mass hysteria on TV, social media and in his own street was like a weekend Rapture event for Remainer cultists and defeated Labour tribalists.
In they all piled, scenting blood — every single political foe on the Left, from the BBC to the civil service. One Whitehall numbskull even tweeted partisan abuse from the civil service’s official account, confirming precisely why Cummings wants to dismantle it.
Even a few left-wing bishops feebly threatened something or other if he wasn’t sacked. And some Tories bearing grudges joined the fray.
We do understand the public discontent at Cummings seemingly flicking two fingers at the lockdown rules for his own convenience. But it wasn’t entirely so, was it? Boris Johnson’s top aide gave a convincing, detailed and verifiable account of himself yesterday, as he should have done three days ago.
Some key allegations against him were false. And he was clearly motivated solely by getting the best care for his young child when he and his wife had Covid. The official lockdown guidelines give him at least a partial defence.
The Sun hates hypocrisy. We often call it out. Some of our readers are furious with Cummings and we get why. But the disproportionate, whipped-up rage elsewhere was purely political.
Nothing else explains the mob laying siege to his family home, hounding and bullying him in the street, blasting attack messages on a giant screen
and sickeningly being congratulated for it by their Labour MP Emily Thornberry.
Who can blame Cummings for seeking help from his family in self-isolation instead of from locals like those?
We all know what this is really about:
Destroying the man who swung the EU vote, crushed Corbyn and secured a Tory majority to force Brexit through.
The man who, post-Covid, will help bring vital change to forgotten parts of Britain that sneering metropolitan Remainers despise nearly as much as they do him.
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The Police Federation insisted people should not be taking to the road if they are feeling unwell.
National chairman John Apter tweeted: “It’s not a wise move.”
Durham Police said it was making further investigations into Mr Cummings’ actions to see if he broke lockdown rules.
It came after Mr Johnson faced deafening calls to sack his embattled top aide.
Professor Stephen Reicher, a government scientific adviser, warned “more people will die” because of the PM’s refusal to sack Mr Cummings.
He said the breach had “fatally undermined” the nation’s fight against coronavirus.
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Police chiefs said keeping Mr Cummings in post made enforcing lockdown “dead in the water” and “next to impossible” to enforce.
Mr Johnson also faced a growing revolt within his own party, with more than 20 MPs now demanding he sack Mr Cummings.
Meanwhile, bishops have even warned the Church of England would stop working with the Government on the pandemic “unless very soon we see clear repentance.”
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