BORIS Johnson refuses to sack Dominic Cummings despite a Tory civil war breaking out.
The PM again stood by his chief aide who is accused of twice breaking lockdown rules to travel with his family.
WHY is Boris Johnson prepared to take so much flak for just one adviser amid growing calls for his head?
First, as the Tory leader told a colleague recently, “my strongest dislike in life is being told what to do”.
More significantly, Dom Cummings is not just any adviser. The Vote Leave guru is Boris’s strategic brain.
Aides say they are more like equals than boss and subordinate — a powerful double act, but lost without each other.
A press conference on Monday by Mr Cummings giving his side of the story failed to quell anger. Scotland Office minister Douglas Ross resigned in protest.
Almost 40 backbench Tory MPs have also publicly called for the Vote Leave guru to step down.
Some have been spooked by polls showing the PM’s approval rating has plummeted by 20 per cent and that more than half of the public think Mr Cummings should quit.
A Savanta ComRes poll shows Mr Johnson’s rating has dropped to minus one.
The government’s approval is down by 16 per cent.
And a YouGov poll shows 71 per cent of Brits say Mr Cummings did break lockdown and 59 per cent think he should resign.
Mr Ross, MP for Moray, refused personal pleadings from the PM and Mr Cummings to stay.
He tweeted: “I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn; people who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance.
"I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the Government was right.”
also demanded Mr Cummings “consider his position”.
Mr Johnson was defiant his chief adviser’s 264-mile drive to isolate on his father’s Durham farm so his son, four, had emergency childcare nearby was the right thing to do.
His spokesman said: “He has set out that he believes Dominic Cummings acted reasonably, legally and with integrity and with care for his family and for others.”
Mr Cummings was also backed by ex-Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.
He told his constituents in a letter he believed Mr Cummings had broken lockdown rules but didn’t think he should resign.
Mr Hunt said: “As someone who has been at the centre of media storms with a young family I know you do make mistakes in these situations.
"I am also not convinced that politics gains much from the spectacle of scalp-hunting.”
SOME Tories must get a grip.
Without further damning revelations, Boris Johnson seems vanishingly unlikely to sack Dominic Cummings. They have endured worse flak together.
Why, then, are so many Tory backbenchers leaping on the “Cummings must go” bandwagon?
A few perhaps hope that Boris would postpone the final Brexit moment with his chief aide gone. Others are discombobulated by their constituents’ anger.
All apparently prefer the distraction of this soap opera to focusing on the economic juggernaut about to hit them.
The Tories have FAR greater problems than the Cummings saga.
If MPs are already panicky over the first dip in their polling, wait until four million are on the dole and the gravest recession of our lives has engulfed us.
They should worry more about trying to keep their constituents in work than about writing self-indulgent protest letters in the desperate hope those voters still regard them fondly in 2024.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, ally and former boss of Mr Cummings, said “fair-minded people” would see he acted “to reduce the risk” of coronavirus spreading.
But there remains serious discontent elsewhere in the Cabinet.
Nine senior ministers refused to make public statements of support, despite calls from Mr Johnson’s Commons aide, MP Alex Burghart.
One said: “Cummings' position is untenable. It’s the main body of thought.”
Another senior minister reckoned quitting would “achieve nothing and allow Dom to dominate Boris even more”.
Former chief whip Mark Harper said Mr Cummings had “damaged the credibility of the Government’s central message so badly”.
The chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, Sir Graham Brady, is being pressed to hold an emergency meeting on the furore.
Prof Stephen Reicher, one of the government’s scientific advisers, said: “If all of us thought primarily can I find a loophole then we simply couldn’t have got through this crisis together.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “The public have made so many sacrifices and this polling clearly shows people think there cannot be one rule for senior government officials and one for everyone else.
“The Prime Minister's support for his adviser increasingly looks out of touch and is losing him support with the public and his own party.”
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