Grant Shapps – Dominic Cummings won’t resign
A media storm has been battering the government this morning after it emerged that the Prime Minister’s key adviser Dominic Cummings could have breached the government’s strict advice against travel during the lockdown. In March, Cummings and his family left London to self-isolate in his native Durham, in order to be near to close relatives should he and his wife be unable to look after their 4 year old son. Cummings and the government insist that he did nothing wrong. The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps defended Cummings’ decision and denied that his job was on the line:
GS: Mr Cummings decided that the best way to provide that security for [his son] was to be in a location where his sister and his niece could drop food off on the doorstep…
AM: Is he going to resign?
GS: No.
Key point of lockdown is ‘not to keep moving around’
Marr pressed Shapps on whether his defence of Cummings amounted to double standards and asked about the implications of allowing people to interpret the lockdown rules to best suit themselves:
GS: The key point has always been that people remained locked down, which is exactly, as I understand it, what happened in this case… The guidance makes clear… that we are aware that not all of these measures will be possible. The key thing is not to keep moving around.
Also Shapps – Two new allegations are not true
Fresh claims have been made in the Observer and the Sunday Mirror that Cummings had been seen out and about on two separate occasions across county Durham during mid April, and that Cummings had made a journey to London and back while he should have been quarantined. Sophy Ridge asked Shapps about this claims, which he refuted:
GS: I don’t know about [the sighting in Barnard Castle on April 19th], but if that date was true, it would have been outside of the 14 day [quarantine] period… I do know that it’s not the case that he’s travelled backwards and forwards.
Steve Baker – Dominic Cummings should go
However, Steve Baker became the first Conservative MP to break ranks and give an interview calling for Cummings to be sacked. The former Brexit minister, who was known to have misgivings about Cummings’ appointment as an adviser, told Ridge he thought the row was a distraction:
SB: If he doesn’t resign, we’ll just keep burning through Boris’s political capital at a rate that we can just ill afford in the midst of this crisis… I think mums and dads… will wonder why he’s been allowed to do this, and I really just don’t see… how this is going to go away unless Dominic goes.
We’re in ‘a nonsense position’
Baker said that if the government continued to endorse Cummings’ decision, it would create a headache for the police, as more and more people would feel that they could stretch the government guidance if necessary:
SB: We can’t be in a position where there is uncertainty about what one is obliged to do… To be in a position where there’s extreme latitude in the interpretation of the rules, that makes them completely unenforceable for the police… We’re now in a nonsense position.
Nick Thomas-Symonds – PM ‘should provide answers’
Marr also spoke to the Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds. Unlike Baker and some of his Labour colleagues, Thomas-Symonds did not call for Cummings’ immediate resignation. Instead, he called for an inquiry and for Boris Johnson himself to present the full story to the public and the press:
NTS: The Prime Minister [should] take the daily press conference and provide answers, because this is an extraordinarily serious situation. The British people have made sacrifices to get through this crisis by following the guidelines… The allegations… need to be dealt with.
Labour councils have my support over schools
Thomas-Symonds also voiced his backing for several councils across the UK which are unhappy about the government’s plan to reopen primary schools from 1st June, and have indicated that they may refuse to do so:
NTS: I think it’s unsurprising that Labour councils are doing that… I back anybody, whether it’s Labour councils or others, who have not got to a stage where they have confidence from the government about safety.
Venki Ramakrishnan – Scientists should not be ‘found culpable in hindsight’
And finally, the President of the Royal Society Venki Ramakrishnan told Marr that it was vital that scientists were not vilified for giving advice during the pandemic which may have been found to be less effective than hoped:
VR: When [scientists are] faced with very uncertain facts that are rapidly emerging… they don’t want to be blamed or found culpable in hindsight when more evidence comes along or the evidence changes… It is reassuring that at least No. 10 has recognised that.
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