LONDON (AP) – Several lawmakers from Britain’s governing Conservative Party on Sunday joined opposition calls for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide to be fired for allegedly violating the national coronavirus lockdown rules that he helped to create.
Johnson was due to address a government news conference amid growing pressure over his adviser Dominic Cummings, who drove 250 miles (400 kilometers) from London to his parents’ home in Durham, in northeast England, with his wife and son as he was coming down with COVID-19 at the end of March.
Britain’s lockdown, which began March 23, stipulated that people should remain at their primary residence, leaving only for essential local errands and exercise. Anyone with coronavirus symptoms was told to completely isolate themselves.
“Dominic Cummings has a track record of believing that the rules don’t apply to him and treating the scrutiny that should come to anyone in a position of authority with contempt,” tweeted Conservative lawmaker Damian Collins. “The government would be better without him.”
Another Tory legislator, Steve Baker, said Cummings must resign for not “abiding by the spirit, at least, of the slogans which he has enforced on the rest of the country.”