FORMER Labour MP for Bishop Auckland Helen Goodman, whose father died in a care home, said she found the case of Mr Cummings “incredible”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend: “What was the point of the sacrifice that we all made? What was the point of the miserable, lonely death that my father had? I just find it utterly repellent.”

Asked if she was tempted to break the lockdown to see her gravely ill father, she added: “Yes of course, of course, everybody was just wresting with these intolerable dilemmas.

“I think the Cabinet ministers are utterly craven to excuse and exonerate him.

“We’ve had this public health message that this was for the greater good of us all unless, it seems, you happen to be a friend of the Prime Minister. Why’s it OK for him to whizz around the country when he’s infected?”

Asked if Mr Cummings should stay in the job, she said: “Of course he shouldn’t, there’s no question that he shouldn’t. He’s undermined the public health campaign that they’ve been running – trying to run – for the last two months.

“I think it’s incredibly destructive – not just the act in itself, but the defence of the act, I think it’s incredibly destructive.”