Police commissioner says lockdown breakers are using Dominic Cummings as an excuse

Lockdown breakers are using Dominic Cummings as an excuse to flout the rules, making it 'almost impossible' for officers to do their job, a Police commissioner has said.

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson says officers are reporting people breaking lockdown rules and using special adviser Dominic Cummings' actions as an excuse.

Meanwhile, the head of NHS Providers urged Boris Johnson to acknowledge that public trust and confidence in the social distancing measures have been dented in the last few days.

Mr Jamieson told BBC Radio 4's The World At One programme that people are telling officers that "if it is okay for Cummings, it is okay for us" and "it looks like there is one rule for us and another rule for the people in No 10 Downing Street".

He said: "Now you can't... if the rules are flexible, and people seem to have interpreted them who are at the heart of Government, then it is almost impossible then for police officers to be able to carry out their job effectively.

"What the police are now saying to me is they are getting quite a push back, not just from some of the younger people who previously where saying why can't I play football, why can't I go out in the streets? They're getting push backs from other generations of people as well.

"Now that is a bad sign, showing that confidence in the rules, confidence in Government and thereby the police's ability to enforce it has been undermined very much in the last few days."

Chris Hopson, the Chief Executive of NHS Providers said: "I think it would be really helpful if the Prime Minister was to acknowledge the fact that there is a risk that public trust and confidence in those social distancing guidelines has been dented and if he was to set out really clearly what the Government is going to do to restore that lost trust and confidence."

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Asked whether Dominic Cummings should go, Mr Hopson said: "I'm not going to answer that."

The chief executive of NHS Providers has said healthcare professionals would like "dots to be joined up" with the Government's track and trace plan.

Mr Hopson said: "I think what we're saying here is we are about to enter a dangerous phase, but if we haven't got the track, test and isolate infrastructure in place, and if we've got confidence and trust in the guidelines starting to reduce, that feels to us to be really quite a dangerous position.

"So if I was one of those select committee chairman, I would be asking the question - Prime Minister, given we're not going to have the world-class test and trace in by June 1, when will it be available?"

He added: "How can you restore the trust and confidence in the social distancing guidelines that has been lost over the last four days, given that we are entering this dangerous phase?"

Asked why the Government's system would not be world class, Mr Hopson said "we need to build local test and trace capacity and that is simply not going to be in place".