I am just back from London. Legs crossed and no stops at any motorway toilets. It was a demo in Whitehall on Monday afternoon against banning drivers with dodgy eyesight. My job was just to blow my horn. It was very loud. Bee-ee-ee-eep! You should have heard it. So I missed the press conference at nearby Downing Street by Dominic Cummings. Was it any good?
Dominic Cummings is from County Durham, where Rowan Atkinson went to school. Pit yackers, as locals call themselves, always mention that – probably good for tourism. Now Mr Cummings has put Barnard Castle on the map.
Cummings, the PM’s chief scribbler and whisperer, drove about 260 miles to County Durham from London to take his wee fellow to be near his grandparents. Only diehard Tories are not incandescent. Normal people weren’t allowed to do that, opposition MPs moan in fuzzy, badly-lit videolinks to TV stations on cheap webcams.
His critics claim Mr Cummings broke the rules – but which rules? Er … What would my fictional hero, Monsieur Hercule Poirot, the detective extraordinaire of Belgium and ITV3, say? Whereas Sherlock Holmes just ploughs on seeking more clues, Poirot would twiddle his moustache, smile sweetly and say: “Let us use our little grey cells and go back to the facts we know.”
Whatever Boris Johnson, or anyone, said about the rules doesn’t matter. After the legislation is passed, the PM is a mere messenger. The PM doesn’t personally write the law or take to court anyone who breaks it. In this very political case, the most reliable fact we have is the law of the land. Tres bien?
New “rules” were drawn up by health professionals and expensive lawyers and became law to deal with the pandemic. The new law is the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020. Other regulations apply in Scotland.
Mighty newspapers claim the legal regulations ban all except essential travel. What is essential? I started digging to see what the new law says. There is a section called “Restrictions on movement”. Paragraph 1 says: “During the emergency period no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”
Then, “a reasonable excuse includes the need…” and it lists reasonable excuses including getting food, giving blood, doing work that cannot be done from home and so on. And then at the foot of that list it says: “To avoid injury or illness or to escape harm.”
Bingo! If Mr Cummings was trying to avoid the illness hitting his family – and no one is saying he was not – then travel is allowed. The law doesn’t say how far anyone can travel, just that travel is allowed. Oui?
I know how enormously difficult it is to understand but awful personal sacrifices and the traumatic suffering this horrific virus has caused others are not relevant to Dominic Cummings’ situation. It is not one law for him and all that. The law allows travel to avoid illness or harm. You look it up if you don’t believe me. Stick to the facts.
Therefore, I now believe Dominic Cummings was allowed to travel to Durham. Certain partisan MPs still raging for effect should have checked it themselves before sounding off on Skype in front of cluttered bookcases. They now look foolish – as well as out of focus.
Mr Cummings, in case you still have your job this morning, I will address you directly. You said what you did was reasonable and legal. Yes and no. Like Roger Whittaker in 1969, you had to leave old Durham but you took a spin to Barnard Castle. You bothered no opticians? That random travel was wrong, by which I mean not legal. You need to properly apologise for that misjudgment before we move on or you must quit. Like yon Douglas Ross, the Morayshire MP in black shorts, who has already given his own junior ministerial career the red card.
I think Dominic Cummings is in the clear about his trip to Durham but I am just a buffoon who likes digging out facts that other people choose to ignore. I am not connected to any political party. No, I did not like Dominic Cummings saying earlier he did not care how the situation looked. He was right not to regret shielding his child but he was wrong not to apologise for his illegal excursion to the castle.
As Hercule himself said in Death In The Clouds: “Justice is a fine word, but it is sometimes difficult to say exactly what one means by it. In my opinion, the important thing is to clear the innocent.” Well said, Miss Agatha.
It is important that everyone understands the rules. Don’t be like Norman from Manor Park here in Stornoway.
He has just met a new girl and he took her home last weekend. He told me they played hide and seek. He found her in the meter cupboard and went in after her. I told him he breached lockdown rules. He said: “No. We have gas and electricity. There were two meters between us.”
