He infamously said he had decided to drive from his parents’ house on the outskirts of Durham to the town of Barnard Castle in order to check his eyesight. The resulting scandal led to a Downing Street press conference in which Cummings, then the prime minister’s chief of staff, defended his actions. The Guardian has won “scoop of the year” at the London Press Club awards, after the reporter Matthew Weaver broke the story of Dominic Cummings’ lockdown-breaking dash to Durham during the first coronavirus wave.
