Eight shocking revelations from Cummings and Cain
at the Covid inquiry
From foul-mouthed rants about colleagues to ‘appalling
neglect’ of vulnerable people, those close to Boris Johnson revealed workings
of government at height of pandemic
Matthew
Weaver
Tue 31 Oct
2023 20.00 GMT
These are
the key things we learned on the most compelling and foul-mouthed day of the
Covid inquiry so far:
Boris Johnson suggested ‘Covid is nature’s way of
dealing with old people’
Sir Patrick
Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic,
noted that Johnson favoured “older people accepting their fate and letting the
young get on with life”. As the prime minister was resisting reimposing
restrictions in December 2020, Vallance wrote: “He [Johnson] says his party
‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just nature’s way of dealing
with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them’.”
Dominic Cummings said vulnerable people were
‘appallingly neglected’
The prime
minister’s top adviser was asked about how much No 10 considered ethnic
minority groups, domestic abuse victims and others in the run-up to imposing a
national lockdown. Cummings said: “I would say that that entire question was
almost entirely appallingly neglected by the entire planning system.” He added:
“The Cabinet Office was essentially trying to block us creating a shielding
plan.”
Cummings frequently called for the sacking of Matt
Hancock and other cabinet ministers
In May
2020, he warned Johnson about the health secretary: “Hancock is unfit for this
job. The incompetence, the constant lies, the obsession with media bullshit
over doing his job. Still no fucking serious testing in care homes his
uselessness is still killing God knows how many.” By August 2020 Cummings told
Johnson he was creating the perception that he was “happy to have useless
fuckpigs in charge”. He claimed Hancock was a “proven liar”. And he accused
Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS in England, of “bullshitting”. He
also said Gavin Williamson’s position as education secretary was not
sustainable after a U-turn over teacher-assessed exam grades.
Cummings used misogynistic language to denigrate the
deputy cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara
He claimed
MacNamara’s propriety and ethics teams “waste huge amounts of time”. In a
WhatsApp message to the No 10 communications director, Lee Cain, he said he
would “personally handcuff her and escort her from the building”. He added: “I
don’t care how it is done but that woman must be out of our hair – we cannot
keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging
stilettos from that cunt.” Cummings suggested moving MacNamara to the
communities department where she could build “millions of lovely houses”.
Cummings denied his comments were misogynistic. “I was much ruder about men,”
he told the inquiry.
Johnson urged Cummings to end an ‘orgy of narcissism’
When
Cummings was asked to leave Downing Street in November 2020, he complained to
Johnson about briefings from those close to his then fiancee, Carrie Symonds.
Johnson told him: “You speak of briefings from team Carrie. She hasn’t briefed
anyone and my instructions to all were to shut the fuck up.” The PM also
accused Cummings of briefing that Symonds was shaping lockdown policy. He said:
“This is a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism by a government that should be
solving a national crisis. We must end this.”
Cummings was unrepentant about his trip to Durham at
the height of lockdown.
He
confirmed the day of the Barnard Castle trip was his wife’s birthday. But he
added: “The handling of it was a disaster and caused huge pain to a lot of
people that I very much regret. But in terms of my actual actions in going
north … I acted entirely reasonably and legally, and did not break any rules.”
Cummings appeared to regret little about his time at No 10, apart from the
language in his messages. His last words to the session were: “I should
apologise for my terrible language.” WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry
showed Mr Johnson claiming that his adviser had never told him he had gone to
Durham. In messages dated 19 July 2021, Johnson said: “Cummings a total and
utter liar. He never told me he had gone to Durham during lockdown … He never
told me. I then tried my very best to defend him.”
Cain tried to resist Sunak’s ‘eat out to help out’
scheme in the summer of 2020
The former
director of communications at No 1o told the inquiry the then-chancellor’s
scheme “made absolutely no sense whatsoever”. He said it undermined the
government’s message about Covid. He told the inquiry: “What are we signalling
to the public? … Go back out, get back to work, crowd yourself on to trains, go
into restaurants and enjoy pizzas with friends and family – really build up
that social mixing. Now, that is fine if you are intent on never having to do
suppression measures again – but from all the evidence we are receiving … it
was incredibly clear that we were going to have to do suppression measures
again.”
Cain said it was a ‘huge blunder’ to ignore Marcus
Rashford’s campaign on free school meals
He blamed
the mistake on the lack of diversity in government. In his written evidence to
the inquiry, Cain said: “I remember asking in the Cabinet room of 20 people,
how many people had received free school meals. Nobody had – resulting in a
policy and political blind spot. This was a huge blunder. The PM (to some
degree understandably) said we needed to draw a line in the sand on public
spending commitments, but this was clearly not the place to draw that line –
something the PM was told by his senior team of 20 people.”
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