Even as Prime Minister Boris Johnson struggles to defend his close aide Dominic Cummings after he travelled to Durham during lockdown, reports have now emerged that his younger sister Rachel Johnson too ‘flouted’ lockdown rules as she visited her second home in Notting Hill while she worked in London.
Rachel who has worked as a journalist, magazine editor and TV and radio personality, and has also written several novels, had earlier said that she is isolating herself at her Somerset home and had been making only essential journeys to Leicester Square in London where she presents an evening show.
According to a report in Mirror, instead of her much stated isolation at the Somerset home, Rachel visited her second home in Notting Hill, where her two sons live.
The revelation is surely going to cause embarrassment to the prime minister as the government lockdown norms clearly disallowed switching between homes and guidelines had clearly stipulated that people had to stay wherever they were at the beginning of the lockdown.
Rachel Johnson had previously stated she was staying in the Somerset home with her husband and daughter but as an essential worker, she has been travelling to the capital to host her Friday evening LBC radio show.
According to a report in the Mirror newspaper, after her show on Friday the Prime Minister's younger sister returned to the Notting Hill home before she met friends to play tennis on Saturday. The report said that she took a train back to Somerset later that day.
A government source claimed that it didn’t look good for anyone concerned. The source told The Mirror: "It doesn't look good for anyone," adding: "First his friend Dom and now his sister have been caught bending the rules, if not breaking them."
Ironically, the allegations have come after Rachel on her show had said that Cummings should apologise for his 250-km trip to Durham while lockdown was still in place.
Amid chorus from opposition for his dismissal, Boris Johnson had defended Cummings last week saying he believed his chief aide acted ‘legally, responsibly and with integrity’.
