Peter Rhodes on insurance hikes, furry flyers and the reporting of the Cummings affair

I suggested an anti-Covid jab might be better received if people first had an anti-scepticism jab. My thanks to the reader who came up with an altogether snappier suggestion: anti-sceptic cream. I wish I'd thought of that.

The large blue butterfly, declared extinct in England since 1979, has been successfully reintroduced in Gloucestershire. Now, pass me the anti-sceptic cream. Did the large blue vanish entirely? I recall chatting with an army rifle-range warden in the 1980s who told me that on his patch (no names, no grid references, naturally) the large blue was doing fine, several years after becoming officially extinct.

Still on winged creatures, find a quiet rural spot at sundown on one of these warm, humid days and just look up. With luck you'll see one of the most brilliant displays of precision flying. Bats – nature's very own Red Arrows.

I asked what sort of parent would refuse the offer of an isolated farm house during the pandemic, as accepted by the Downing Street spin doctor Dominic Cummings? One reader came back sternly with: “A law-abiding parent.”

Which is a fair point, if you believe that Cummings broke the lockdown laws. But he didn't. For the record, on the morning of May 28, police released a press statement with two findings. The first was that: “Durham Constabulary does not consider that by locating himself at his father’s premises, Mr Cummings committed an offence contrary to regulation 6 of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020.” The second finding was that Cummings' drive to Barnard Castle “might have been a minor breach of the Regulations.”

The first finding was a bombshell. It was the first independent examination of an incident which had dominated politics and divided the nation for weeks - and it exonerated Cummings. This was not what some parts of the media wanted to hear, and they reacted accordingly. The BBC, for instance, made no mention of it in Radio 4 lunchtime news, although they did mention the Barnard Castle finding. In the Beeb's later online report, the clearing of Cummings was buried in the 13th paragraph.

It's easy to see why some people genuinely believe he broke the law by moving north. On the evidence so far, he did not. Does any of this matter, three months on? Yes, it does because enemies of Boris Johnson's adviser are still trying to get him sacked and he has no intention of quitting. The saga continues. Cummings is not going.

Home-insurance renewal time. As expected, the premium had shot up so I spent 20 minutes waiting on the phone to haggle for a better deal. To my surprise, far from cutting the premium, they whacked it up by £40 because we have a baby in the house. “Children can increase the risks,” explained the adviser. Well, maybe they do. So when the kids leave home can customers expect a discount? Thought not.