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Dominic Cummings 'Set Bad Example' For Locked Down North-East, Tory MP Says

Voters in the newly locked down north-east of England are too “sensible” to follow Dominic Cummings’ example of breaching restrictions in the region, a Tory MP has said.

Sedgefield MP Paul Howell said Boris Johnson’s chief aide set a bad example but the “vast majority” of people know “if Dominic Cummings jumped over a cliff they wouldn’t follow him”.

“Some of them might push him but that’s a different story completely,” he joked, while speaking to HuffPost UK’s Commons People podcast.

Howell also criticised Boris Johnson’s “unfortunate” focus on his so-called Operation Moonshot plan to give millions of people in the UK daily quick-result coronavirus saliva tests, when many people are struggling to access swab antigen tests now

The Tory MP, who is chairing a new all party parliamentary group on left behind communities, also urged the government to take action on its levelling up agenda now, despite the twin crises of Brexit and Covid, stressing people in deprived areas want a “hand up rather than a hand out”.

Howell spoke as he was returning from Westminster to his constituency in County Durham, which is under new Covid-19 restrictions covering almost two million people in the wider north-east.

Asked whether Cummings’ behaviour during the height of the national lockdown could undermine the local restrictions, Howell told Commons People: “We certainly got significant communications, shall we say, at the time when that happened, at least as much as most other MPs.

“The inbox filled fairly rapidly as to the comments about what he should or shouldn’t have done.

“And it didn’t set a good example and it doesn’t help.

“But I would say that the vast majority of people in the north-east are sensible enough to know if Dominic Cummings jumped over a cliff they wouldn’t follow him.

“Some of them might push him but that’s a different story completely.

“Seriously, the whole message on this, I know it’s all the nuances...

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