A majority of Conservative supporters believe that Dominic Cummings should be fired for breaking coronavirus rules, according to a new poll.
The Prime Minister’s most trusted aide is under intense pressure for driving 260 miles from London to Durham with his family at the height of lockdown and has faced calls from across the political spectrum to resign.
Now, a poll from JL Partners for the Daily Mail, has revealed that 66 per cent of people think Cummings should leave his post amid the row, including 55 per cent of all Conservative voters.
A further 63 per cent believe Boris Johnson should sack his right hand man, including 53 per cent of Tory supporters.
Perhaps even more damning is the 80 per cent of people and almost three quarters of Conservative supporters who agree that Cummings broke the rules he played a key role in drawing up.
In further bleak news for the Prime Minister, the research suggests that former Labour voters in the ‘Red Wall’ in the North and Midlands have reacted particularly badly to the row.
At 72 per cent, working class ‘C1/C2’ voters are more likely to think the government is behaving as though ‘it is one rule for them and another rule for everyone else’, while 69 per cent are more likely to say Cummings is not telling the truth than voters overall.
The new survey comes after Mr Johnson’s personal approval rating plummeted from 19 per cent to minus one per cent in days.
Dominic Cummings leaves his Islington home the day after he made a public speech and account on his movements to Durham during lockdown
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seen in his running kit as he returns to Downing Street after going for a run at Buckingham Palace. He in under increasing pressure over the Dominic Cummings row
In a further blow to the PM, the new poll shows that 72 per cent of all voters believe he should have addressed Cummings’s breach sooner, while 68 per cent agree that Mr Johnson’s defence of his aide has ‘trashed’ the government’s lockdown message.
The poll also suggests that Cummings’ unprecedented Rose Garden address had the opposite of its intended effect, with 66 per cent of people believing he did not tell the truth.
A total of 78 per cent of people and 66 per cent of Conservative supporters do not believe his claim that he drove to Barnard Castle on Easter Sunday with his wife and young child to ‘check his eyesight’.
And 61 per cent rejected his explanation for driving to Durham to get help with childcare.
Close to 60 per cent believe he came across as arrogant, while just eight thought he was sympathetic and four thought he was remorseful.
A further 82 per cent believe he should apologise, including 76 per cent of Conservative supporters.
Even more alarmingly for Mr Johnson, the incident appears to have dramatically affected the popularity of both his party and himself, 37 per cent believing he is a better leader than Labour’s Keir Starmer, compared to 42 per cent just four days earlier.
According to the poll, 65 per cent said the scandal made it less likely people would obey lockdown rules while 23 per cent said it would make them less likely to self-isolate for 14 days.
JL Partners interviewed 1,038 adults online yesterday.
A total of 78 per cent of people and 66 per cent of Conservative supporters do not believe Cummings claim that he drove to Barnard Castle on Easter Sunday with his wife and young child to ‘check his eyesight’
Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday insisted Cummings did not break lockdown rules by travelling 260 miles to Durham as Boris Johnson faced calls from an estimated 40 Tory MPs to axe his top aide.
Mr Hancock told the daily Downing Street press conference that it is his view that Mr Cummings had acted ‘within the guidelines’ but he could ‘understand why reasonable people can take a different view’.
The Health Secretary added: ‘But my judgement, which is the same as the Prime Minister’s judgement, is that what Mr Cummings did was within the guidelines.’
His comments came after the Government was hit this morning by the resignation of Douglas Ross as junior Scotland minister over the row as he said Mr Cummings’ press conference yesterday had left many ‘unanswered questions’.
Downing Street is facing mounting anger from various sections of the Conservative Party over its handling of the row with many more Tory MPs on top of the 30 who have made clear Mr Cummings should go also expressing disquiet. They include MPs who won seats in the so-called ‘Red Wall’ during the 2019 general election.
The new data comes after a YouGov poll from Tuesday revealed the Cummings row had caused Boris Johnson’s personal popularity to nosedive at the same time as a majority of voters said his top aide broke the rules and should quit.
Some 71 per cent of people polled by YouGov believe Mr Cummings broke strict coronavirus rules by driving from London to Durham in March, including 56 per cent of Tory voters and 63 per cent of his fellow Brexiteers.
Almost six in 10 voters believe he should resign, including almost half (46 per cent) of Tories and 52 per cent of Leavers.
But the Prime Minister’s refusal to sack him has also had an impact on his own image.
Mr Johnson had a net approval rating of 19 per cent on Friday before the news of his chief aide’s 260-mile journey to Durham.
But a poll by Savanta ComRes today has Mr Johnson on -1 per cent after he and senior ministers leapt to Mr Cummings’ defence and refused to sack him – the lowest of the pandemic.
The Prime Minister now has an approval rating of below that of opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer, and the ratings of other senior ministers including Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock have similarly tumbled.
And the row appears to have taken its toll on the Government as a whole, with a Friday approval rating of 20 per cent falling to -2 per cent yesterday.
The figures suggest that Government attempts to dismiss the furore as a Westminster Bubble obsession of no interest to the public may be wide of the mark.
Acting Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said: ‘The public have made so many sacrifices since the lockdown and this polling clear shows people think there cannot be one rule for senior government officials and one rule for everyone else.
‘The Prime Minister’s support for his adviser increasingly looks out of touch and is losing him support with the public and his own party.
‘The Prime Minister’s judgement has now become the issue, as this saga is confusing the vital public health messages needed to defeat coronavirus.
It came as a junior Government minister quit, delivering a massive blow to Boris Johnson and Downing Street.
Douglas Ross, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland and a Tory whip, announced this morning he is quitting the frontbench because he was unconvinced by Mr Cummings’ defence of the 260-mile journey in March.
Mr Johnson in Downing Street today after returning from running in the grounds of Buckingham Palace
The Prime Minister had a net approval rating of 19% on Friday before the news of his chief aide’s 260-mile journey to Durham. But a poll by Savanta ComRes today has Mr Johnson on -1% after he and senior ministers leapt to Mr Cummings’ defence and refused to sack him – below that of Keir Starmer
Mr Ross, the MP for Moray, said in his resignation letter: ‘I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government.
‘I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right.’
The MP, who backed the UK staying in the EU in 2016, added that ‘Mr Cummings interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked’.
A Number 10 spokesman said Boris Johnson thanked Mr Ross for his ‘service to government and regrets his decision to stand down’.
Labour said Mr Ross had ‘done the decent thing’ by quitting a ‘government that is out of control’ while the SNP claimed it was ‘staggering’ a minister had quit ‘before the unelected adviser’.
The row appears to have taken its toll on the Government as a whole, with a Friday approval rating of 20% falling to -2% yesterday.
The resignation of Mr Ross, a qualified football referee who has previously run the line in Champions League games, comes at the worst possible time for Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings as the Government tries to move on from the damaging row.
Number 10’s headache was only likely to increase as Tory MP Simon Jupp went public with his own criticism this morning as he said if he had been in the same situation as Mr Cummings he ‘wouldn’t have made the same decisions and would have since considered my position’.
Michael Gove had earlier defended the PM’s top aide as a ‘man of honour and integrity’ and said that ‘people will make their own mind up’ about the trip to Durham.
Mr Cummings yesterday refused to apologise for the journey and insisted he had no regrets.