MANY DORSET Tory politicians have been reluctant to comment on the Dominic Cummings’ bank holiday explanation of his excursion to the North East.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax refused to comment and West Dorset MP Chris Loder was unavailable for comment.

Chris Loder has since issued a statement which can be seen here.

Most councillors only offered a curt ‘no comment’ and only one of more than thirty returned the call where a message was left. Cllr David Shortell was the only one of only two councillors contacted who was prepared to comment when asked. “It was a bad example and he didn’t give a good account of himself. He was one of the instigators of self-isolation yet he failed to give a strong enough case, I felt, to justify his own action…”

“My thoughts is that this won’t encourage people to stay at home.” The West Moors and Three Legged Cross councillor said he had only spoken to one other person about the issue and they had taken the same view.

Marshwood Vale councillor Simon Christopher took a different view and said he doubted if people would be swayed one way or another about isolation at home, if the need arose: “I though his behaviour was not unreasonable for a concerned parent. It is not un-common for parents not to be able to draw on local child care, but it’s incredibly common for people to seek out assistance from family,” he said.

Weymouth councillor Louie O’Leary was not prepared to be drawn on the subject: “I’m always happy to talk about local issues but I don’t want to be drawn into national politics,” he said, adding his criticism of press photographers outside the home of the Prime Minister’s aide: “You could see they weren’t exactly social distancing,” he quipped.

“I don’t think a lot of people will be bothered by this,” said the Littlemoor councillor.

Cabinet member Cllr Andrew Parry (West Parley) said he too would rather not comment on national issues: “It’s not something I want to be drawn into, although I am sure a lot of people do have views,” he said.

Cllr Mary Penfold was also happy to talk about local issues, but declined the opportunity to comment on Mr Cummings. “We’ve had a virtual open gardens event at the weekend in place of our usual open gardens. You could report on that instead, if you like. It went very well,” said the Sydling St Nicholas resident.

Cllr Mike Parkes (Ferndown North) was one of the few councillors to return the call – but only to apologise for being out of touch with what was going on nationally. “I’m a retained fireman and have spent pretty much all of the last nine days at Wareham Forest. I think we’ve at last got control of it now, thank goodness,” he said.