Dear Stephen,

If I’m honest, seeing the long list of Government ministers who have lined up to support Dominic Cummings, I write to you more in hope than expectation.

Nonetheless, as one of your constituents I feel obliged to let you know of my own anger, and that of other residents I know in North East Cambridgeshire, to see the lockdown rules we have observed scrupulously, and often to our own detriment and that of people we love, being flouted with apparent impunity by a government adviser with the full support of senior parliamentarians and the Health Secretary and the Attorney General.

Speaking personally, friends and family have suffered bereavements during this time, and those they love have been unable to travel to support them in person in their loss. I have not seen my eighteen-month-old grandson in nearly three months, even at a safe two-metre distance.

Others have endured far more painful experiences than mine. You will be aware of people unable to comfort their parents, children, partners as they died, because they were following the rules laid down and repeated by this Government. Families locked down in their homes struggling to look after their children while very sick themselves. And yet Dominic Cummings, author of those rules as of so much else emanating from your Government, made more than one trip to a destination over 250 miles from his London home, and ministers are now queuing up to re-frame the meaning of advice that was crystal clear when it was given, in an attempt to gaslight the British public into believing that Dominic Cummings behaved appropriately and that we were simply foolish for not ignoring advice that did not suit us. Worse than that, we are told that if we did not break the rules as Dominic Cummings did, it is an indication that we do not care enough for those we love.

I hope you will at least attempt to understand why so many people, of all party political affiliations and none, feel so utterly furious at what Dominic Cummings has done, and why two-thirds of the British public believe he broke the rules and over half believe he should resign.