QUESTIONS are being asked about whether Boris Johnson should have taken a seven mile cycle ride when we are supposed to only be exercising within our “local” area.

And then Derbyshire police are being criticised for handing out two £200 fines to young women who travelled just five miles for a walk around a reservoir.

It is very difficult to know where the line is drawn in these strange times.

But can you, with any seriousness, if you are a council leader, issue a press release urging people to stay at home when you are 5,000 miles away on holiday?

Cllr Angie Dale, of Richmondshire council, has managed to do just that. As North Yorkshire was in Tier 2 when she flew to the Maldives, she appears not to have broken the rules, so perhaps we should applaud her for single-handedly trying to keep the aviation industry in the air.

There have, though, been calls for her to resign. Political opponents are bound to want to make hay while the sun shines – and it certainly did on Cllr Dale in the Maldives – but at the very least, this episode has undermined her authority and damaged the standing of her council which has found itself in national headlines for the wrong reasons.