TENBURY MP Harriett Baldwin has said that she believes that Dominic Cummings journey to Durham and 60-mile round trip including a stop off at a beauty spot, to test his eyesight, has under mined the Government’s moral authority.

The MP for West Worcestershire, whose constituency includes Tenbury, joined a group of more than 100 other conservative MPs in saying that the Government’s chief adviser has damaged the ability to give a credible public health message to the public during the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr Cummings became the centre of attention after journalists discovered he had travelled from London to his family estate at the height of the coronavirus lockdown when the advice was to stay at home.

After initially saying it did not matter what it looked like, he then explained that the story began when he returned home during the day from work because he had had a call saying his wife was unwell.

However, later in the day and against the guidelines, he returned to work in Downing Street.

In the evening, fearing his wife had Covid-19 and that he might get the condition, he drove his wife and four-year-old son 260 miles to Durham.

Both Mr and Mrs Cummings were unwell after they arrived in the North of England.

Before returning home, Mr Cummings made two trips out – firstly to collect his wife and child from hospital and then on the day before he returned to London, the family visited Barnard Castle 30 miles from where they were staying.

Mr Cummings claims that this was in order to test his eyesight. The family briefly got out of the car in Barnard Castle and he again stopped by a wooded area because he says his son needed to go to the toilet.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has stood by his chief adviser.

But Mrs Baldwin says that she believes that what was done was an error at a time when a large number of people were making huge sacrifices.

Some people died without family around them in hospitals, in care homes and at home because people tried to follow what they thought were the rules.

“While I have every human sympathy with Dominic Cummings, I think there is a higher bar for members of the Government,” she said.

“If the Government wants people to follow the public health advice in order to protect our NHS and save lives, then members of the Government giving that advice, including the Prime Minister’s adviser, need to follow it too.

“The Government relies on moral authority to receive the consent of the people to such draconian reductions in their freedoms. Therefore, for the sake of future adherence to public health guidelines, I believe he should resign.”

Mrs Baldwin had held Government positions in the treasury, the ministry of defence and as a minister responsible for overseas development before being sacked by Boris Johnson when he became Prime Minister.

Mrs Baldwin, like other MPs received a large amount of correspondence after journalists discovered that Mr Cummings had made his journey north.

The aid had originally told journalists that it did not matter what they thought before holding a press conference in the garden at Downing Street.

Boris Johnson says that Mr Cummings had behaved responsibly and within the law. However, he did not allow his Head of Public Health England nor his Chief Scientific Adviser to answer when journalists asked them for their views.

Whilst Mrs Baldwin was amongst the first group of Conservative MPs to criticise Mr Cummings, Philip Dunne, a former Health Minister and MP for Ludlow, whose consistency includes Burford, initially declined to comment about the issue.

However, he then issued a statement saying that he believed that Mr Cummings had undermined the important public health message and had shown a lack of judgement and he understood people's anger over the matter.