Wednesday briefing: What Boris Johnson’s closest
advisers had to say for themselves at the Covid inquiry
In today’s newsletter: Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain
gave evidence at Dorland House on Tuesday – what did they reveal?
Rupert
Neate
@RupertNeate
Wed 1 Nov
2023 06.45 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/01/dominic-cummings-lee-cain-covid-inquiry
Good
morning. Today we’re headed to the Covid inquiry, which is increasingly
revealing staggering – and foulmouthed (you’ve been warned) – insights into how
Boris Johnson and his advisers handled the outbreak of the pandemic.
Those who
were once closest to the former prime minister have revealed Johnson was
referred to as “the trolley” by “pretty much everyone” due to the inconsistency
of his decision making and that he described coronavirus as “just nature’s way
of dealing with old people”.
Johnson
said in October 2020 that he “no longer buy[s] all this NHS overwhelmed stuff”,
and fought back against scientists calling for a lockdown. He argued instead
that “we should let the old people get it and protect others” from the economic
effects of another lockdown.
In one
WhatsApp message eventually released to the inquiry being held in Dorland
House, west London, Johnson wrote: “I must say I have been rocked by some of
the data on Covid fatalities. The median age is 82 – 81 for men, 85 for women.
That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and live longer.”
His closest
adviser, Dominic Cummings, didn’t appear to have much faith in Johnson, and
even less in his cabinet. “At the moment the [Westminster] bubble thinks you’ve
taken your eye off [the] ball, you’re happy to have useless fuckpigs in charge”
he said in reference to other members of the cabinet in a message to the PM in
summer 2020.
When asked
to explain those messages to the inquiry yesterday, Cummings said: “My
appalling language is obviously my own but my judgment of a lot of senior
people was widespread … I would say, if anything, it understated the
position.”
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