Welcome to FTE Politics, a weekly discussion on what's happening in Westminster from the Financial Times.

I'm Sebastian Payne. In this episode we'll be

discussing the extraordinary route over Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister's

chief advisor who reportedly broke the lockdown rules. We'll be looking at why Boris Johnson

invested so much political capital in just one aid. What it says about his

hold over the Prime Minister, the state of his Downing Street operation, and the mood of the Conservative Party.

Plus we'll be discussing the launch of the track and trace operation ahead of lockdown being

eased next week and Britain being allowed to socialise again. I'm delighted

to be joined remotely by our political editor George Parker,

but will correspond Laura Hughes and columnist Robert Shrimsley. Thank you all for

joining and if you find yourself liking and enjoying this episode of FT politics,

then do subscribe through all the usual channels to receive it every Saturday morning,

and you can also leave us a nice review. The only political story that mattered this week was the one about Dominic Cummings.

The influential advisor reportedly broke the lockdown rules of the UK by making a 264 mile trip from his London home to his

parents property in County Durham while showing symptoms of coronavirus. The

reports started to come out last Friday that suggested Mr Cummings had gone against the spirit,

if not the exact law of the lockdown rules, including a rather bizarre 30 minute trip to a market town

called Barnard Castle, which has now entered the national

lexicon to test his eyesight. The amount of political capital invested has

been extraordinary, and the question remains why did Boris Johnson go so far to protect just one advisor?

So George Parker, if we could just cast back into your experience of reporting here,

can you ever recall any Prime Minister or any Party leader putting so much capital into one advisor?

...