The Guardian view on Dominic Cummings: time to go
Editorial
The prime minister’s chief adviser broke the lockdown
and shows no regret in doing so. He should not stay on advising a government
that needs the public to abide by the rules
Published
onMon 25 May 2020 19.42 BST
The prime
minister’s chief adviser should be leaving Downing Street for good, not be
giving press conferences from its rose garden. Unlike millions of Britons who
stayed at home for the sake of collective safety of the country, Dominic
Cummings broke the lockdown in March. While the rest of the UK was
inconvenienced, suffered hardship and lost loved ones without saying goodbye,
Mr Cummings drove 260 miles to his parents’ farm in Durham after his wife fell
sick.
He had been
forced to explain his actions after the Guardian and Mirror revealed his
excursion last week. Yet Mr Cummings on Monday blamed the media for spreading
inaccurate stories, while confirming the essence and detail of the reporting.
His defence was laughable. He admitted driving 30 miles with his family to a
beauty spot to “test his eyesight”. This farrago of nonsense was made worse
because Mr Cummings did not evince any substantial measure of regret. He sought
to defend his actions saying what he did was not a mistake, but rather that
they could be considered reasonable acts of a concerned father and husband.
Mr Cummings
and his wife had not been tested for coronavirus. Neither of them appear to
have been seriously incapacitated at the same time. They had one small child
who needed looking after. These were unfortunate circumstances, not exceptional
ones. Many, many people dealt with far worse. What Mr Cummings cannot seem to
fathom is that if everyone considers their circumstances to be unusual, and
decides that they can move around the country in search of childcare, then the
virus will spread across households, and across communities, and the pandemic
will grow, and many lives will be lost as a result.
The message
in this health emergency to the public was clear: “stay at home”. For Mr
Cummings the message appeared to be to “read the small print” and find a
reasonable excuse not to. The lack of self-awareness is galling. The exemption
that Mr Cummings rests his argument on was developed for people at risk of
domestic abuse. Legal experts suggest that Mr Cummings’ defence would not stand
up in a court of law, let alone that of public opinion. It is a stretch to
think that the lockdown would allow people with what appeared to be coronavirus
symptoms to leave their home and drive to another part of the country. Or to
allow them to end up in a hospital hundreds of miles away from their house.
Mr
Cummings’ actions have the government in crisis. But the country is in the grip
of a coronavirus pandemic. What has been asked of people is to make sacrifices
for the collective wellbeing. This requires a high level of cooperation and
trust. Most people understood that they had to stay inside during the lockdown
and believed that others would do the same. They might not have done so if
people like Mr Cummings had been given official backing to cheat these
reciprocal arrangements.
There is a
long way to go. In the coming weeks the British public is likely be asked to
endure more restrictions for the greater good. It is hoped that they will
ignore Mr Cummings’ example and not bend or stretch the rules but carry on
obeying them both in letter and in spirit. Because this is about protecting the
lives of one’s family and one’s community. The virus is being spread by people
who think, like Mr Cummings, that the rules do not apply to them. This is why
he ought not to remain at the heart of the government.
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