BORIS Johnson refuses to sack Dominic Cummings despite a Tory civil war breaking out.
The PM again stood by his chief aide who is accused of twice breaking lockdown rules to travel with his family.
A press conference on Monday by Mr Cummings giving his side of the story failed to quell anger. Scotland Office minister Douglas Ross resigned in protest.
Almost 40 backbench Tory MPs have also publicly called for the Vote Leave guru to step down.
The Sun has also been told three out of four MPs and ministers have refused to give No10 their support.
Some have been spooked by polls showing the PM’s approval rating has plummeted by 20 per cent and that more than half of the public think Mr Cummings should quit.
A Savanta ComRes poll shows Mr Johnson’s rating has dropped to minus one.
The government’s approval is down by 16 per cent.
And a YouGov poll shows 71 per cent of Brits say Mr Cummings did break lockdown and 59 per cent think he should resign.
Mr Ross, MP for Moray, refused personal pleadings from the PM and Mr Cummings to stay.
He tweeted: “I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn; people who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance.
“I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the Government was right.”
Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw also demanded Mr Cummings “consider his position”.
Mr Johnson was defiant his chief adviser’s 264-mile drive to isolate on his father’s Durham farm so his son, four, had emergency childcare nearby was the right thing to do.
His spokesman said: “He has set out that he believes Dominic Cummings acted reasonably, legally and with integrity and with care for his family and for others.”
Mr Cummings was also backed by ex-Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.
He told his constituents in a letter he believed Mr Cummings had broken lockdown rules but didn’t think he should resign.
Mr Hunt said: “As someone who has been at the centre of media storms with a young family I know you do make mistakes in these situations.
“I am also not convinced that politics gains much from the spectacle of scalp-hunting.”
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, ally and former boss of Mr Cummings, said “fair-minded people” would see he acted “to reduce the risk” of coronavirus spreading.
But there remains serious discontent elsewhere in the Cabinet.
Nine senior ministers refused to make public statements of support, despite calls from Mr Johnson’s Commons aide, MP Alex Burghart.
One said: “Cummings’ position is untenable. It’s the main body of thought.”
Another senior minister reckoned quitting would “achieve nothing and allow Dom to dominate Boris even more”.
Former chief whip Mark Harper said Mr Cummings had “damaged the credibility of the Government’s central message so badly”.
The chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, Sir Graham Brady, is being pressed to hold an emergency meeting on the furore.
Prof Stephen Reicher, one of the government’s scientific advisers, said: “If all of us thought primarily can I find a loophole then we simply couldn’t have got through this crisis together.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “The public have made so many sacrifices and this polling clearly shows people think there cannot be one rule for senior government officials and one for everyone else.
“The Prime Minister’s support for his adviser increasingly looks out of touch and is losing him support with the public and his own party.”
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