Johnson adviser defends his behavior amid UK lockdown as calls for his resignation grow

An adviser to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is refusing to apologize amid an outcry over reports that he drove across the country to stay with his parents despite stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dominic Cummings addressed the controversy at a press conference Monday, CNN reported, telling reporters that he wasn’t sorry for leaving his London home and traveling 260 miles to stay in the town of Durham.

“I don’t regret what I did,” he said.

“I know that millions of people in this country have been suffering, thousands have died, many are angry about what they have seen in the media about my actions,” Cummings reportedly added. 

Cummings also confirmed during his televised statement that he made a second trip to the town of Barnard Castle during the same time period, which he said was to test his eyesight in order to judge whether or not to make the drive back to London.

Pointing to protests outside of his home in London and attacks on social media, Cummings blamed the press for creating what he said was an unsafe environment at his home. His parents’ house in Durham, he argued, was safer for him and his family.

“The point about it wasn’t that it was some nice place to be. If you’d been there you’d see that it’s sort of concrete blocks,” he said, according to the BBC. “The point about it was not that it was a nice place to be but it was the safest place to be in the circumstances.”

Johnson has faced calls to fire Cummings in recent days from politicians across Britain’s political spectrum.

“There was no apology, he said he did not regret anything, he said he went driving to test his eyesight…come on,” said Sir Ed Davey, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, according to the BBC.

“If the prime minister doesn’t act now, he is frankly not fit to lead the country in this crisis,” Davey added.