Useless fuckpigs: How Dominic Cummings described
Boris Johnson’s Cabinet
Sweary WhatsApp exchanges shed light on chaotic
running of Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic.
BY ANDREW
MCDONALD
OCTOBER 31,
2023 2:07 PM CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/useless-fuckpigs-dominic-cumming-describe-boris-johnsons-cabinet/
LONDON —
Boris Johnson’s top adviser Dominic Cummings described the U.K.’s governing
Cabinet as “useless fuckpigs” and urged a round of sackings at the height of
the coronavirus pandemic.
In summer
2020 WhatsApp exchanges shown at Britain’s official coronavirus inquiry
Tuesday, Cummings lambasted the government’s most senior ministers — and called
on Johnson to carry out a reshuffle.
The
messages were sent as Johnson’s government reeled from a rise in COVID-19 cases
after deciding to reopen key parts of the economy — and get pupils back to
school — following that spring’s lockdown.
“Don’t
think sustainable for [then-Education Secretary Gavin Williamson] to stay [at
the Department for Education],” Cummings texted, as he urged Johnson to sack
his education secretary and carry out a reshuffle to “focus minds intensely.”
After
Johnson said it would be “fatal” to brief the Cabinet about an upcoming
reshuffle, Cummings raged that he was making a “big big mistake” in the next
message.
“At the
moment the [Westminster] bubble thinks you’ve taken your eye off ball, you’re
happy to have useless fuckpigs in charge, and they think that a vast amount of
the chaotic news on the front pages is coming from No 10 when in fact it’s
coming from the Cabinet who are ferral [sic],” he texted.
He later
warned of possible “leadership challenges” if Johnson didn’t move to change his
ministerial ranks — and emphasized the importance of sacking then Health
Secretary Matt Hancock, a figure Cummings views with particular disdain.
The
eventual reshuffle was not carried out until September 2021, long after
Cummings had left Downing Street.
Pressed on
those messages at the inquiry Tuesday, Cummings said: “My appalling language is
obviously my own but my judgment of a lot of senior people was widespread.”
And he
added: “I would say, if anything, it understated the position.”
Giving
evidence Tuesday, Johnson’s former Director of Communications Lee Cain — who
was included in the message chain — argued the messages were sent at a high
pressure time for the government and those involved. However, he blamed the
crude language on a “lack of diversity” within No. 10 — and placed the blame
for this at Johnson’s door.
“Fundamentally
any No. 10 is a direct reflection of the principal, and I think that’s probably
the case here,” Cain said.
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