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Prue Leith backs Tory MP son and calls for 'kindness and tolerance' to Dominic Cummings

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 09:  Prue Leith attends the Future Dreams International Women's Day Tea supported by Estee Lauder at The Arts Club on March 9, 2020 in London, England.  (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Prue Leith weighed in on what has become a national debate of Boris Johnson's chief advisor's breach of lockdown restrictions. (Picture: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Prue Leith has defended Dominic Cummings’ decision to travel 260 miles to his parents’ house despite coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

The Great British Bake Off star shared a tweet by her son, Conservative MP Danny Kruger, in which he backed Boris Johnson’s top adviser, adding: “How about a bit of kindness and tolerance”.

Cummings is facing calls to resign after it emerged he travelled from London to Durham with his wife and children despite self-isolating.

The prime minister has pledged his “full support” to his chief adviser, backed by several Cabinet members, but several Tory MPs are calling for Cummings to resign.

Leith, famed for her role on Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off, shared a tweet from Kruger, her son and also Conservative MP for Devizes, that had originally been posted on Saturday morning, in which he defend Cummings’ journey.

He wrote: “Dom and Mary’s journey was necessary and therefore within rules.

“What’s also necessary is not attacking a man and his family for decisions taken at a time of great stress and worry, the fear or death and concern for a child.”

His mother - who in 2017 famously accidentally revealed the winner of Bake Off on Twitter hours before the final aired due to a mis-timed tweet - wrote: “Well said, Danny”, before adding her call for kindness and tolerance.

Her support sparked a flurry of angry responses from Twitter users, including one who shared the government’s previous strict lockdown instructions in place at the time of Cummings’ journey, saying: “If you can follow a recipe, you should understand this.”

Others referred to the fact that they had followed the government’s rules, accusing Cummings of hypocrisy.

Many pointed out that they hadn’t seen family members for ten weeks because they were keen to following the rules, and suggested that they had not been shown the same kindness as Leith was calling for for Cummings.

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