MIKE HILL: Debacle of Dominic Cummings Durham trip will not go away

Dominic Cummings, senior aide to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, answers questions from the media after making a statement inside 10 Downing Street, London, following calls for him to be sacked over allegations he breached coronavirus lockdown restrictions. PA Photo. Picture date: Monday May 25, 2020. Mr Cummings travelled to County Durham in March to self-isolate with his family - apparently because he feared that he and his wife would be left unable to care for their son - while official guidelines warned against long-distance journeys. See PA story HEALTH Coronavirus Statement. Photo credit should read: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire

In light of the recent debacle of Dominic Cummings and his family, allegedly with COVID-19, driving from London to the County in order to isolate on his parents’ farm, some would say it’s a shame the old rules still don’t apply.The Government may want the Cummings scandal to go away and dissipate in the wind, or beneath the fog of distractions created last week and this, around the easing of the lockdown, but it won’t. The Architect of Government strategy throughout the pandemic and the man behind the ‘Stay at Home’ message was caught red handed breaking the rules he helped create. Worse still, he did so on our doorstep, in a region with a high Covid-19 ‘R’ transfer rate and in a county which has the highest Coronavirus related care home death rate in the country.Simply unbelievable and unacceptable.Since the lockdown was hastily eased, despite the concerns of the scientific advisers relied upon by Government, people have ventured out more, made their way to the beaches and beauty spots, visited relatives, had barbecues and took to cycling on the pavements - a bit of an exaggeration, but Cleveland Police have recorded a high number of complaints on the subject. By and large though, the people of Hartlepool remain cautious and protective of one another; which is why we remain bottom of the mortality table in the North East, and why we must not be complacent.Compare that to the bizarre scenes of MPs forced to return to Westminster by the dropping of the Virtual Parliament voting system; queuing up in lines bigger than anything experienced at any supermarket, even at the height of the pandemic, taking up to an hour per vote to do something which can be done in a matter of seconds on a laptop. I can tell you that despite the Government Whip ensuring a motion was carried to continue on with this practice, frankly even Tory MPs were uneasy about it privately. It is one thing to show by example that Parliament is up and running, therefore the rest of the country should follow their lead, but it is clearly in many ways dysfunctional and that is very scary