> Can someone explain what he should have done?
Here is the guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection
He and his wife should have followed this bit: if you live with others and you are the first in the household to have symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19), then you *must* stay at home for at least 7 days, but all other household members who remain well *must* stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days. The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the house became ill.
Much later in the guidance, it says: If you are living with children ...
Keep following this advice to the best of your ability, however, we are aware that not all these measures will be possible. What we have seen so far is that children with coronavirus (COVID-19) appear to be less severely affected. It is nevertheless important to do your best to follow this guidance.
Cummings interpreted this section (presumably the "not all these measures will be possible" bit) to mean that he could ignore the first section, drive 260 miles with his wife and child, and settle down in Durham for a while ... with a trip out on his wife's birthday. Most people in the UK would not have interpreted it that way, certainly not at that time. On Sunday, Boris said it was OK because Cummings had "no alternative".
But of course he
did have alternatives. As it turned out, Cummings and his wife were never so ill that they could not look after their child themselves. So they did not need to make the trip at all. And, if they had turned out to be so ill, then one of the *well* members of their family could have come down and got the child. That's just one alternative.
But we're now at the point where, even if Cummings was to go, the damage is irreversible. There is a failure of leadership, a conveyed attitude of "we can interpret the rules how it suits us", and that's now the message that a large part of the country has received. There is no undoing that. Cummings may as well stay in his post for all the difference it would make in him leaving it.