THE position of Dominic Cummings, the PM’s ‘special advisor’, accused of a serious breach of lockdown rules (which he undoubtedly had a hand in drafting) is totally indefensible.

His breaching of the rules was far more serious than the flouting of the rules that led to the resignation of Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, Catherine Calderwood, and Professor Neil Ferguson, a top advisor on whose research and advice the lockdown rules were drafted.

They at least, apologised and did the honourable thing.

In defending Cummings, the PM and other senior government ministers are undermining the lockdown message and, more importantly, risk losing the loss of trust and respect of the people.

I suppose we can take some small comfort in the fact that experience has taught us that expressions of ‘total support’ by Prime Ministers for senior figures who ‘misbehave’ are usually, within a few days, followed by the resignation or firing of the miscreant.

If Boris Johnson continues to defend a man who, even before the pandemic hit, was regarded by the public as a malign influence at the centre of government, this incident could become his ‘Watergate’.

Cummings is to this government what Rasputin was to Russia’s Czar Nicholas II.

Advisors/spin doctors are ten a penny in Whitehall, Cummings is easily replaceable.

Get get rid of him Boris before you become another Nixon.

ROBERT (BOB) READMAN

Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth