Dominic Cummings arrives in Downing Street as Boris Johnson faces pressure from Tory MPs to sack top aide

Katy Clifton24 May 2020

Dominic Cummings has arrived in Downing Street as Boris Johnson faces calls to sack his top aide over alleged lockdown breaches.

The Government adviser was seen leaving his home in north London on Sunday after he was accused of flouting the rules more than once.

Fresh allegations emerged that Mr Cummings, 48, made a second trip to County Durham, where his family lives, despite stringent social restrictions being in place.

As he left his home on Sunday, one journalist asked if he had returned to Durham in April, to which Mr Cummings said: “No, I did not.”

Mr Cummings, who was wearing a lanyard with an ID card, was carrying a note pad and what appeared to be a black bin bag.

He then got in the car and drove away before he was filmed arriving in Downing Street.

The PM pledged his “full support” on Saturday to his under-fire chief adviser, who it emerged had travelled 260 miles to the North East in March to self-isolate with his family while official guidelines warned against long-distance journeys.

According to the Sunday Times, the Tory leader told allies he would not throw Mr Cummings “to the dogs” following reports he made the journey to ensure his four-year-old child could be looked after as he and his wife were ill.

But according to reports in the Observer and Sunday Mirror, the former Vote Leave campaign co-ordinator made a second trip to Durham and was seen there on April 19 – five days after being photographed on his return to Westminster.

A second witness told the papers they saw him a week earlier in Barnard Castle on Easter Sunday, a popular tourist location 30 miles from Durham, during the period he was believed to be self-isolating.

Downing Street has said it would “not waste time” replying to the fresh allegations from “campaigning newspapers”.

But Mr Baker told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “If he doesn’t resign, we’ll just keep burning through Boris’s political capital at a rate we can ill afford in the midst of this crisis.

“It is very clear that Dominic travelled when everybody else understood Dominic’s slogans to mean ‘stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives’.”

Craig Whittaker, Conservative MP for Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, said Mr Cummings’ position was “untenable”.

He tweeted: “You cannot advise the nation one thing then do the opposite.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who was sent out to defend Mr Cummings at the daily Downing Street coronavirus briefing on Saturday, faced questioning on the adviser’s actions on Sunday but admitted he had not spoken to him beforehand.

The Cabinet minister, in an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, said Mr Cummings was not going to resign.

He also said: “I’m afraid I don’t know (about Barnard Castle) but if that date was true that would have been outside the 14-day period. But I’m afraid I don’t have the information on that.

“But I do know it is not the case that he has travelled backwards and forwards, which seemed to be a major part of the stories I saw in the paper today.”

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