I hate Cummings as much as anybody but I'm slightly inclined to hold back on the judging until I know a bit more.

A parallel or two: my son and daughter-in-law live 260 miles from us. Our grandson is the same age as Cummings' son. The missus and I, over a morning brew, discussed what we might do were our son and daughter-in-law to catch the virus. They have family within an hour's drive, but in each household there are small children or vulnerable people. It would probably be down to us to look after the little lad if push came to shove...

We decided that we wouldn't let our son drive to us. The return journey is too much for us to do in a day. We'd probably ask our son to meet us at a services or a junction on the M4 somewhere for a handover (we'd need his child seat in any case), bearing in mind that you can't always cross from one side to the other...He would stay in his car and go straight back home. Big risk for us, but we have no underlying conditions and with luck our son would be sufficiently recovered by the time we came down with it...can't think of anything better...

So what does Dom appear to have done wrong? He drove a very long way unwell. He took two diseased people into a totally different part of the country. He definitely broke the self-isolating rule... His wife wrote what looks like an intentionally misleading piece in The Spectator. Lastly, it's taken two months for this to come out. That smacks of a cover-up both at the Spectator (Tory) and Downing Street (Tory).

What alternatives did they have for their child? It's easy to assume that people like him in high places must have the wherewithal...but we can't be sure... and was he just looking after the interests of a vulnerable person (his son)?