Signs appear near Wigan Infirmary calling for Dominic Cummings' to be sacked for 'betraying NHS'

Multiple signs have appeared outside Wigan Infirmary, painted onto cardboard, which read: "NHS betrayed by Cummings. Sack him".

Boris Johnson is facing sustained pressure to sack his key aide following allegations he breached coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

The Prime Minister will discuss the easing of measures at a Cabinet meeting on Monday, but the political storm over his chief adviser's trip looks set to overshadow any announcements.

Mr Cummings travelled to County Durham in March to self-isolate with his family - apparently because he feared that he and his wife would be left unable to care for their son - while official guidelines warned against long-distance journeys.

Further reports also suggested he took a second trip to the North East in April, having already returned to London following his recovery from Covid-19 - a disease which has seen more than 45,000 people in the UK die after contracting it.

Several Conservative backbenchers have joined calls from opposition parties for Mr Cummings to quit or be sacked, amid warnings that his actions have "undermined" efforts to fight coronavirus.

Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of the Government's advisory group on behavioural science, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "If you look at the research it shows the reason why people observed lockdown was not for themselves, it wasn't because they were personally at risk, they did it for the community, they did it because of a sense of 'we're all in this together'.

"If you give the impression there's one rule for them and one rule for us you fatally undermine that sense of 'we're all in this together' and you undermine adherence to the forms of behaviour which have got us through this crisis."

And Gloucestershire's independent police and crime commissioner Martin Surl said Mr Cummings' actions made a "mockery" of police enforcement earlier in the lockdown.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think it makes it much harder for the police going forward - this will be quoted back at them time and time again when they try to enforce the new rules.

"But I think more importantly it makes something of a mockery of the police action going back when the message was very, very clear: stay at home."

Mr Johnson said he could "not mark down" Mr Cummings for the way he acted, and told the Downing Street press conference on Sunday that, following "extensive" talks with his aide, he concluded "he followed the instincts of every father and every parent".

He said Mr Cummings had "acted responsibly, legally and with integrity".

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