This is where Cummings account falls apart. I can buy a lot of far-fetched guff elsewhere. But this passage has no bearing on his decision to break quarantine on 27/3 nor his decision to breach lockdown on 12/4. It is inserted simply to elicit sympathy. This is a liar in trouble.

This is a vital observation. Liars always try a little too hard when caught. This account of his child having been very briefly ill is, apparently, why he had been secretive with the press and hadn’t set the record straight earlier. But there is no reason for its inclusion. Zero.

This is also the passage trailed to the media, before Cummings made his statement, to suggest “ooh, you lot will be sorry, when all is revealed”. As if the trauma of his child throwing up once on 2/4 explains definitively why he broke rules on 27/3 and again on 12/4.

It is relevant that this was not even mentioned in his wife’s account of those ten days.