Quote Originally Posted by magpie_mania View Post
And then it would go away? It won't, I think it has a way to run yet.

For me, the problem is that I heard time after time 'You must stay at home' and 'Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.' Not once did I hear anything about flexibility or using common sense.

It has also been said today that it is guidance. Surely they are regulations and you can be fined for breaking them. Can you be fined for not following guidance?

There are many questions to be answered. One is as to whether there was anyone nearer who could have helped with caring for his child.

It seems there is a big difference between *the law* and *guidelines* and this seems to be why Cummings is emphasising that what he did was 'reasonable' and 'lawful'

the quote below is from this link -
https://www.instituteforgovernment.o...navirus-crisis

The prime minister began the ‘lockdown’ with a televised statement to tell the nation: “you must stay at home.” Yet parts of his statement were couched, carefully, in the future tense. People “will” only be allowed to leave their home for certain purposes, he said: to shop for basic necessities, do one form of exercise a day, to satisfy a medical need, care for someone vulnerable, or travel to and from work where absolutely necessary. He added that the police “will” have the powers to enforce the rules.

Initially, the guidelines for individuals were not backed by legislation – and some people ignored government advice. When legislation did arrive, three days after the PM’s address, it said something slightly different. The regulations provided that “no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”

The legislation set out a non-exhaustive list, adding further “reasonable excuses” to those previously set out by the prime minister. The law also permits people to leave home with any reasonable excuse which is not explicitly mentioned. Keeping some flexibility in the scheme makes sense, as it would have been difficult for those who drafted the legislation to think of every real-world situation in which it might be necessary to go out.

Published government guidance remains more restrictive than the regulations. For example, it says that people should only leave home for specified “very limited purposes”. It also suggests that people can exercise only once a day, although in England the law does not say this. The government advises people, further, to “stay local and use open spaces near home where possible”, rather than drive, but the legislation does not say this either.