In a 7,000 word essay published as part of his newsletter, Dominic Cummings leaked screenshots of various Whatsapp conversations with his colleagues at Number 10.
Those that caught the eye of the public were private messages between the PM Boris Johnson and Cummings; his former chief aide. When it became clear that on March 26th the testing pledge of 10,000 a day by 30th March would not be met, Johnson called Hancock ‘totally f**king hopeless.’
Exposing Hancock’s failures in mobilising testing programs for NHS workers, Cummings agrees with the Prime Minister’s judgement, writing: “This was obviously true but although the PM whinged to me and others, he would never say to him, despite dozens of requests from two Cabinet Secretaries, me and other ministers and officials”
“Health Secretary Matt Hancock: “should have been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody in multiple occasions.. including publicly”.”
On top of his damning words, the leaked messages exposed Johnson’s proposal to replace Matt Hancock as health secretary. A proposal sparked by the ‘disaster,’ of PPE distribution. Johnson writes, ‘I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.’
Downing Street has not denied the authenticity of the messages.
Handling of Pandemic
Cummings’ latest incendiary writings follow his seven-hour long evidence session with MPs investigating the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of May, Cummings sat down to questions about the government’s handling of the pandemic. He insisted Health Secretary Matt Hancock: “should have been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions… including publicly”.
He reiterated the disorganisation of early Covid planning in his recent newsletter, explaining that they reached a point of realisation that there had been ‘terrible errors and many would die’. This lead to discussions of priority groups (‘e.g. mother of small children’) for the NHS if it was to be overwhelmed.
‘this [PM] has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not ‘go on and on’
Although a public inquiry into the handling of the COVID pandemic is scheduled for Spring 2022, Cummings writes that ‘it will not start for years and it is designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone.’
He continues: ‘this [PM] has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not ‘go on and on’. So we either live with chronic dysfunction for another -5 years or some force intervenes.’
Downing Street have insisted that the Prime Minister has ‘full confidence’ in Matt Hancock and denied claims that the PM plans to step down after the next election.
Matilda Head
Featured image courtesy of Number 10 on Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
Matilda Head
Matilda is 20 years old and a Psychology student at the University of Cambridge. If not writing for her University papers or Empoword, she'll be reading, listening to a musical theatre soundtrack or playing with one (of many) of her pets. You can find her on TikTok @matildasnewsroom.