Like many of my colleagues, I have received hundreds of emails from constituents regarding the Prime Minister’s adviser, Dominic Cummings. I am dismayed at Mr Cumming’s actions and his inability to take responsibility for them.

As a parent, who, along with my husband, suffered from Covid-19 symptoms at the height of the lock-down, with two children under the age of six, I understand challenges may have been presented to Mr Cummings and his family.

But the guidance was clear, stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.

Millions of us who were in similar circumstances were looking for an honest explanation and an apology. What we got were weak excuses and no regrets, followed by laughable and insulting defences from the cabinet.

This pandemic has posed an extraordinary strain on our country as a whole. It has also touched all of us personally, whether we have lost loved ones, isolated from family or been apart from friends. The correspondence I have received has reinforced this for me in reading about the enormous sacrifices so many have had to make.

More importantly, we cannot forget the work of our key workers and their safety and well-being, one constituent has written to me about her experience driving past Lewisham Hospital “this week I saw staff gathered outside Lewisham hospital to pay their respects to a member of staff who had died of the virus. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen.”

The Prime Minister have deeply misjudged the public perception of Mr Cumming’s actions and the damage it has done to the confidence in our government’s ability to tackle the pandemic. The Prime Minister has shown us that it is one rule for those who make the rules and another for the public.

The Labour party has been very clear, Boris Johnson’s failure to sack his senior adviser has exposed his hypocrisy and left him looking unprincipled and untrustworthy. Labour has written to the Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill calling for an urgent inquiry into allegations that Dominic Cummings broke the coronavirus lockdown rules.

Labour has also written to the Home Secretary to raise serious questions about the implications for policing, following the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday.

I will continue to work with colleagues to make sure this government is held to account and that no one can be above the rules designed to protect us.

Janet Daby MP

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