Tory MP apologises for tweeting his support for Dominic Cummings

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's senior aide Dominic Cummings leaves his north London home. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA. - Credit: PA

A Conservative MP has apologised for tweeting his support of Dominic Cummings on Saturday and said the PM’s aide should ‘face the consequences of breaking the law’.

In a statement Robert Halfon, the MP for Harlow said: ‘I would first like to make it clear to residents that I regret writing the tweet yesterday in the way I did about the Number 10 political adviser and his movements.

‘I am really sorry for it. I do not support or condone anyone who has broken the law or regulations. Anyone who has done so should face the consequences.’


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In his tweet, Halfon wrote: ‘Ill couple drive 260+ miles to ensure that their small child can be looked after properly. In some quarters this is regarded as crime of the century. Is this really the kind of country we are?’

His statement on Sunday said: ‘The tweet was wrong because many thousands of people in Harlow and across the country have suffered and struggled enormously during the coronavirus.

‘It has caused significant pain and hardship. My tweet did not recognise that. I am sorry.

‘My original tweet was aimed at the four-year-old child because I thought at the time that both parents had been ill with coronavirus, genuinely had no one to look after the infant – and for this reason had taken the child to their extended family to be looked after.

‘I thought that to do this was within the regulations.’