Labour calls for Boris Johnson to attend Downing Street briefing to answer Dominic Cummings questions

Sarah Jones on Sophy Ridge on Sunday - Credit: Sky News

A shadow minister has called for Boris Johnson to attend Sunday’s Downing Street briefing to answer questions about his most senior adviser.

Sarah Jones urged Conservative ministers to explain why they backpedalled on coronavirus lockdown rules whilst defending allegations that Dominic Cummings breached them.

Speaking during Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the shadow policing minister said: ‘There are questions to ask both in terms of what Dominic Cummings did but also in terms of the response that we saw yesterday where we seem to get this rowing back of the rules from minister after minister suggesting that nothing had been done incorrectly.’

Jones has reminded everyone about the serious tone adopted by the prime minister at the beginning of the lockdown, advising people to ‘Stay at home, Protect the NHS and save lives’ – and said he must come to the press conference today and answer questions about what happened, what he knew, and what he is going to do about it.

‘You look at the office of the prime minister questioning and undermining statements from our police force in Durham, which is very serious, and we need to understand what happened,’ Jones said.

Jones also said that the UK has the highest death rate in Europe, and that the infection rate has been brought down due to ‘huge sacrifices’ people have made – but suggested this was not respected by the very person who drew up the rules in the first place:

‘We have a situation where Cummings’ family had symptoms, travelled back and forth the country and potentially went back afterwards, with the new allegations that we have seen.

‘I know single mums who had coronavirus and their child has had to stay with them, and we had to chip in food to make sure they can eat, everyone has made huge sacrifices; we think of Ismail, the 13-year-old boy, his parents didn’t attend his funeral, he died on his own. If everybody had decided to break the rules, we would not have brought the infections down.

‘People have put their lives on hold and made huge sacrifices to obey the rules during this period and we have seen the heartbreak of people not being able to attend funerals of loves ones, not being able to see their family members as they die, and I think people are rightly feeling angry. Is it one rule for us and one rule for the people at the top?’