It comes in a week where the UK's police watchdog found evidence of a close and possibly "intimate" relationship between Boris Johnson and the tech entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri which they believe influenced the decision to place her on foreign trips while he was mayor of London something in the past would lead to his resigantion.
The Independent Office found no evidence that Johnson had personally intervened to influence the payment of sponsorship money to Arcuri and so have not recommended a police investigation into the UK prime minister.
However, they did find that officers at City Hall when Johnson was Mayor of London were influenced by the belief that Johnson was in a close relationship with Arcuri.
"While there was no evidence that Mr Johnson influenced the payment of sponsorship monies or participation in trade missions, there was evidence to suggest that those officers making decisions about sponsorship monies and attendance on trade missions thought that there was a close relationship between Mr Johnson and Ms Arcuri, and this influenced their decision-making," Director General Michael Lockwood said in a statement on Thursday.
Boris Johnson is not so much a Teflon Prime Minister , but one who has a team around him including the media , who seem to help him wipe of the dirt.But if he was to lose Cummings and it became clear there was no way back for him who knows what revenge the latter would take.
That Cummings was spotted near the gate of his parents’ home with a young child, believed to be his son, at around 5.45pm on Sunday 5 April, five days after the complaint was made to the police.
This was just over a week after he began self-isolating with symptoms of the virus. It was also less than two hours before the prime minister was admitted to hospital after his symptoms worsened.
The Guardian has previously asked Downing Street about this sighting in April, but officials declined to comment.Coronavirus: the week explained - sign up for our email newsletter
Read moreThe disclosure that Cummings was spoken to by police raises potentially awkward questions for him and No 10. With the UK in the grip of the pandemic, the government’s own advice urged everyone to stay at their main homes to avoid the spread of the virus and to save lives.
The disclosure that Cummings was spoken to by police raises potentially awkward questions for him and No 10. With the UK in the grip of the pandemic, the government’s own advice urged everyone to stay at their main homes to avoid the spread of the virus and to save lives.
“You should not be visiting family members who do not live in your home,” the guidance said. “The only exception is if they need help, such as having shopping or medication dropped off.”
Instead, Cummings appears to have made the trip from his home in east London to Durham at a time when Johnson and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had tested positive.
Downing Street said Cummings had developed symptoms “over the weekend” of the 28 and 29 March.
When questioned about Cummings’ whereabouts during the following week, a Downing Street spokesperson said only that he was in contact with No 10.
A Durham resident who lives near the Cummings family home expressed shock and annoyance after the 5 April sighting.
The witness, who did not wish to be named, told the Guardian: “I was really annoyed. I thought it’s OK for you to drive all the way up to Durham and escape from London. I sympathise with him wanting to do that, but other people are not allowed to do that. It’s one rule for Dominic Cummings and one rule for the rest of us.”
Tulip Siddiq MP, the vice chair of the Labour party, said of the reports: “If accurate, the prime minister’s chief adviser appears to have breached the lockdown rules. The government’s guidance was very clear: stay at home and no non-essential travel. The British people do not expect there to be one rule for them and another rule for Dominic Cummings. Number 10 needs to provide a very swift explanation for his actions.”
The acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, tweeted: “If Dominic Cummings has broken the lockdown guidelines he will have to resign. It’s as simple as that.”
Ian Blackford, the Scottish National party’s Westminster leader, said: “Dominic Cummings’ position is completely untenable – he must resign or be sacked.”
Breaking lockdown rules has been a resigning issue for senior officials.
Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling prompted the lockdown, quit as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) for flouting physical distancing rules when he was visited by his girlfriend.
After he stood aside, senior Tories insisted he had done the right thing.
Hancock said he was “speechless” and added: “I think he took the right decision to resign.”
The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Ferguson’s behaviour “risks undermining the government’s lockdown message”.
Scotland’s chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, was also forced to quit after making two trips to her second home during the coronavirus lockdown.
The sightings raise questions about the government’s commitment to the “stay at home” message it was repeating to the public in the first stage of the lockdown. The Guardian has already revealed that the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, travelled to his parents’ home on the same weekend. Jenrick said he was delivering medicine and essential supplies.
Cummings was seen running through Downing Street on 27 March after it was announced that Johnson and Hancock had tested positive for coronavirus.
Cummings and his wife, Mary Wakefield, an editor at the Spectator, last month gave a detailed account of how they coped under lockdown while having the symptoms of coronavirus.
Writing in the magazine, Wakefield said that Cummings rushed home to look after her when she began showing symptoms. A day later he began feeling “weird” and then couldn’t get out of bed. “Day in, day out for 10 days he lay doggo with a high fever and spasms,” she said.
The article goes on: “Just as Dom was beginning to feel better ... Boris was heading in the other direction, into hospital.” This was the evening when Cummings was first seen near Durham with the child. On the same evening, Scotland’s chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, was forced to resign after she was photographed visiting her second home in Fife.
Wakefield’s article does not say where they were during quarantine, but it adds: “After the uncertainty of the bug itself, we emerged from quarantine into almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown.” Wakefield has been asked to clarify whether the family were in their London home at the time.
In the same issue of the Spectator, Cummings wrote: “At the end of March and for the first two weeks of April I was ill, so we were both shut in together.” He described the experience as “sticky … Everything is covered in a layer of spilt Ribena, honey, peanut butter and playschool glue.”
Clearly some people have broken lockdown relegations through ignorance partly due to the fact that Prime Minister advice is confusing and his failure to admit that he only speaks for England on lockdown relegation has caused confusion which has seen scenes of English visitors travelling to Welsh designations because "Boris said it was alright".
But Cummings has no excuse and travelling after being in close contact with an infected person and showing symptoms himself is inexcusable.
One other Question Durham, is 264 mile from Cummings home and he had a small child with him did he stop for refreshments on the way?
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