Brexiteer and Cummings ally calls for his resignation accusing him of ‘double standards’

The Brexiteer made the comments in his regular i column in which he said it was time for the government’s chief advisor to use the ‘cold analyses’ that ‘made him famous’ and quit.

‘Cummings, of all people, knows that tribal loyalties, complex technicalities and good intentions are not what matters in the final political reckoning,’ he wrote.

‘His success is founded on an unshakeable focus on the mission and the message. He knows that once you are repeating your critics’ arguments to explain technicalities, you are losing.

‘Put another way, this issue resembles the £350m figure in reverse.’

Wallace praised Cummings for ‘delivering Brexit’ and ‘crushing Corbynism’ before challenging him for not seeking government advice before travelling or being upfront about the trip and issuing an apology earlier on.

‘There are various points at which this story might have been survivable,’ he said. ‘Asking Johnson, or other colleagues, before travelling. Staying in Durham once there. Securing other transport to return, and avoiding a trial trip to Barnard Castle. Being open about the decision and the rationale at the time, or since, or even presenting this full account a few days sooner, along with an apology.

‘But those things did not happen.’

He then went on to accuse Cummings of a double standards, saying public outrage at his decision to travel 270 miles to Country Durham while symptomatic with the virus was ‘real, justified, and widespread’ adding that keeping him on board ‘would be a mistake’.

‘Were he advising someone else in this situation, I suspect that he would remind them that misfortune, foolishness, unfairness or personal sentiment count for little in the face of cold, hard political reality,’ he wrote.

‘If he pauses, and coldly analyses the situation in the way that made him famous, he will conclude that for the sake of his own cause he should resign.’