Breaking the rules

Free-thinking people - who often regard themselves as very intelligent, very creative, and above the laws and regulations placed on the dull and ignorant common herd - generally say that 'rules are made to be broken'. And it's all right if they do it, because they have good judgement, need no guidance, are not stupid, and can safely ignore all the restrictions that ordinary people must adhere to.

It's an arrogant way of thinking, but I've come across it time and time again. Not that I'm completely guiltless myself. Frankly, when convenience matters, or getting somewhere on time, it's all too easy to disregard unpopular or nonsensical laws and regulations.

Indeed some people make it a point of honour to flout any impositions and requirements they don't like, or see as insulting, or 'not British', claiming that public opinion would vindicate them if ever they were found out and made to justify what they had done. Personally, I wouldn't chance my arm, but there are a lot of amateur philosophers around who have a keen vision of what their natural rights are.

Well, we certainly value and uphold the ways of an enlightened civilisation in this country, and that includes the worship of many individual freedoms. We are eagle-eyed for infringements on our civil liberties, and our historic birthright to do much as we please - although in fact the cumulative effect of half a century of technological advance has made us one of the most watched and tracked societies in the world. Really, you can't leave your front door - at least in a city or large town - without showing up on a series of official cameras, and leaving a electronic footprint as you move about town and spend money. It may be a discontinuous record, but it's enough to reconstruct where one went, for how long, what one did, and possibly whom one met. Witnesses can be found, to amplify what the camera could not see. And away from the streets, the separate insights possible from analysing what we do on the Internet - emails, texts, tweets, pictures posted, and so forth - need hardly be elaborated upon.

Such is the possibility of piecing together a person's movements, it's surprising that any kind of old-fashioned street crime is still perpetrated. It's getting ever-easier to identify suspects, and forensic evidence may seal their fate.

And so to chief government political advisor Dominic Cummings, presently in the news for evacuating his wife and young child from London to his parents nearly three hundred miles away in the North-East.

Done surreptitiously. Not yet publicly explained in full, and a changing story at that. With witnesses now found by newspapers, saying that the man compounded his wrongdoing.

His excuse? A natural wish to place his child in a safer situation. He has played the 'frantic parent' card.

Does being a frantic parent trump lockdown rules such as staying at home, not travelling unnecessarily - not travelling at all if possibly (or certainly) infected with the virus - and not compromising the safety of vulnerable parents?  On the bare facts, Mr Cummings acted as if the needs of his situation did allow him to override the very definite rules current at the time, which he must have been fully familiar with. They were part of the government's central message on why the lockdown was necessary, with 'Stay at Home' as the punchline. It appears he ignored that message knowingly and deliberately. Although of course he might not have given the rules any thought at all.

My view? The same as a lot of other people. Whatever the worry, he was obliged to stick to the rules and sit it out in London. Especially as he was so close to the government. He was next to the seat of power, and had a particular personal duty to set as good an example as any minister, top civil servant, or top scientific advisor. I don't think it matters whether or not he was bound by any official Code. He had to do - conspicuously - what ordinary people had been told to do.

I may be lacking in empathy, but the child could have been looked after in London's very best children's hospital if both parents had needed hospitalisation themselves. Many a parent around the country must have wished they could have spirited their child away to a safer place, but did not break the lockdown, because they were prepared to behave in a way that would protect the wider community, and trusted the NHS and support services to take over in dire need. In a phrase, most of us consciously 'helped the NHS' by not doing things that might spread infection. Mr Cummings thought he was different.

The fallout?

Well, I am sure this scandal won't be dropped, even though it's now 'history' - done and beyond any practical remedy. But not, I would have thought, beyond police investigation and judicial scrutiny. A fine and career eclipse should await him.

If Mr Cummings gets away with it, an awful lot of ordinary people will start to say 'I could have done the same thing' and then by extension 'I can still do it'. The lockdown is now being eased and the rules are slackening, and enforcement is getting that much harder. People are sick of the restrictions. Their resolve to obey the remaining rules is waning, and they don't need examples of unpunished rule-flouting. There are surely now going to be people shifting their nearest and dearest around the country, of children crying to see their grandparents, and being transported to them without so many pangs of conscience. The parents will be prepared to say to any police officer 'I'm merely doing what Dominic Cummings did'.

Hello, fresh spike of infections.

Further thoughts after Mr Cummings has explained what he was doing
His motivation for that trip to the north has certainly been explained, but I still don't feel he is off the hook. The government's message was clear: stay at home. His situation was not exceptional and did not warrant an exceptional solution. His boss, the Prime Minister, wasn't well, but even so could and should have been consulted. Mr Cummings was, after all, under contract and not entirely at liberty to come and go as he pleased. Besides, a chief advisor on whom people depend just can't go AWOL without letting the staff he works with at Number 10 know where he will be, why, and for how long. He was a central figure in the formation of high government policy from moment to moment. He should not have just dropped out.

As for whether he did the right thing as a human being, and specifically as a caring and concerned father, I am not a parent and therefore not competent to judge. But it is clear that millions of other fathers adhered to the rules, and did not whisk their children away to safety as he did. If there was a little-known loophole in the law, or the guidance, that permitted his journey north, then it went against the thrust and spirit of the stark health message being pushed at the time, and he should not - in his position - have taken advantage of it.   

Should he now resign his appointment? Well, if his brain is so indispensable, then perhaps not, although it's rather disconcerting to realise that this country is effectively being run by one man - somebody moreover who is not accountable to the electorate. But surely he should be fined and reprimanded for breaking the law. Or have the police been warned off?