Live: Matt Hancock 'should have been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying' - Dominic Cummings

The former chief advisor has criticised the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic

The Prime Minister’s former chief adviser said Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired over coronavirus failings and “criminal, disgraceful behaviour” on the testing target.

Dominic Cummings also said Whitehall’s top official recommended to the Prime Minister that Mr Hancock should be sacked.

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Downing Street did not deny that the Prime Minister considered sacking Mr Hancock in April last year but insisted Boris Johnson has confidence in the Health Secretary now.

The Prime Minister’s former chief adviser said Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired over coronavirus failings (PA)placeholder image
The Prime Minister’s former chief adviser said Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired over coronavirus failings (PA)

Mr Cummings said there were around 20 reasons why Mr Hancock should have been thrown out of the Cabinet – including, he claimed, lying both in meetings and publicly.

He said Mr Hancock performed “disastrously” below the standards expected and the cabinet secretary – the country’s top civil servant – recommended the Health Secretary should be sacked.

“I think the Secretary of State for Health should’ve been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the Cabinet room and publicly,” Mr Cummings said.

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'Mad and totally unethical': Dominic Cummings launches explosive attack on Boris...
Dominic Cummings: when will Boris Johnson’s former aide give evidence to Select Committee on Covid handling? (Photo: Kim Mogg/NationalWorld)placeholder image
Dominic Cummings: when will Boris Johnson’s former aide give evidence to Select Committee on Covid handling? (Photo: Kim Mogg/NationalWorld)

PM believed coronavirus was like ‘swine flu’

He also told MPs that Mr Johnson believed coronavirus was like “swine flu” and people died unnecessarily because of Government failings during the pandemic.

The Prime Minister’s former aide apologised to the public, saying that ministers, officials and advisers had fallen “disastrously short” of the standards they should expect in a crisis.

Mr Cummings said the Prime Minister was more concerned about the impact on the economy than the need to curb the spread of coronavirus in the weeks leading up to the first lockdown.

The former adviser, who left Downing Street last year after a behind-the-scenes power struggle, told the MPs: “The truth is that senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its Government in a crisis like this.

“When the public needed us most, the Government failed.

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“I would like to say to all the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry I am for the mistakes that were made and for my own mistakes at that.”

What else Dominic Cummings said

In a series of explosive claims, Mr Cummings said:

– The Government was not operating on a “war footing” in February 2020 as the global crisis mounted, with the Prime Minister on holiday and “lots of key people were literally skiing”.

– Mr Johnson thought Covid-19 was just a “scare story” and the “new swine flu” and it was suggested chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty should inject him with the virus on live TV.

– Herd immunity from people catching the disease was thought to be inevitable because there was no plan to try to suppress the spread of the virus.

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– Cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill told the Prime Minister to go on TV and explain the herd immunity plan by saying “it’s like the old chicken pox parties, we need people to get this disease because that’s how we get herd immunity by September”.

PM’s former adviser Dominic Cummings gives evidence on the government’s handling of the pandemic

The mayor from Jaws

After the first lockdown, PMs was “cross” with Cummings and others about being “pushed into lockdown” and said that he “should have been the mayor from Jaws and kept the beaches open”.

“That’s what he said on many, many occasions, he didn’t think in July or September, ‘thank goodness we did the first lockdown it was obviously the right thing to do,’ his argument then was we shouldn’t have the done the first lockdown and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.”

PM did say “let the bodies pile high” remark

Cummings says some of the reporting on the PM’s “let the bodies pile high” remark was incorrect, however, the BBC’s version which claimed he’d said rather see “bodies pile high” than implement a third lockdown, was correct.

“That was not in September though, that was immediately after he finally made the decision to do the lockdown on the 31 October.”

People need to understand how the government failed them when they needed it

Cummings was prompted to give evidence today because, “people need to understand how the government failed them when they needed it” he says.

“People need to understand that now. Who knows what other kinds of problems might come along in the next few years that could easily have the exact same consequences.

“Critical as I am of the prime minister, in no way, shape or form can you say this is just his fault. If you just shuffle him or a couple of ministers around or Hancock it would suddenly work, it wouldn’t.

“These failings our programmed by the wiring of the system, and if you have something this bad and you’ve get tens and tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die, and massive economic destruction the way that we’ve had it, that didn’t need to happen, if we’d sorted things out earlier, everyone in this country needs to face the reality of this. “

He also says it is clear that the PM has changed his mind and is “desperate not to face up to this and not to learn the lessons, I think because of the disaster in the autumn”.

“Not surprised” by travel policy confusion

Cummings says he is not surprised at all by the delay in adding India to the red travel list.

“That is completely in the character of No10,” he said.

Cummings also says he is not surprised by the confusion around the ‘Green, Amber, Red’ travel list countries.

He also says he doesn’t know who is currently advising the PM.

Cummings “can’t really remember” Eat Out To Help Out discussions

Cummings says he “can’t really remember” conversations about the Eat Out To Help Out scheme, but that he didn’t raise any specific objections to the policy as he was opposed to the PM’s overall strategy.

Many figures have been heavily criticised by Cummings today, though Rishi Sunak, and even this policy which seems to fly in the face of what Cummings says he was arguing for at the time, remain completely unscathed so far.

Cummings thought Johnson was “unfit for the job"

“The Prime Minister knew I blamed him for the whole situation and I did.

“By October 31 our relations were essentially already finished, the fact that his girlfriend also wanted rid of me was relevant but not the heart of the problem.

“The heart of the problem was fundamentally I regarded him as unfit for the job and I was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what I thought were extremely bad decisions and push other things through against his wishes.

“He had the view that he was Prime Minister and I should just be doing what he wanted me to.”

Symonds accused of unethical and illegal behaviour over No10 hiring

On Carrie Symonds’ role in his decision to quit Downing Street, Cummings said: “My resignation was definitely connected to the fact that the prime minister’s girlfriend was trying to change a whole bunch of different appointments at No10 and appoint her friends to particular jobs.

“In particular, she was trying to overturn the outcome of an official process about hiring a particular job in a way which was not only completely unethical but also clearly illegal.

“I thought the whole process about how the prime minister was behaving at that point was appalling and all of that was definitely part of why I went.”

Cummings says he should have threatened to resign publicly over second lockdown

Cummings says the thing he got wrong and “terribly regrets” now, is not threatening to publicly resign to try and force the PM into action on a second lockdown.

“I ought to have said to him then, ‘I’m resigning in 48 hours, we can do this one way or the other way, if you announce that you’re going to have a lockdown and take serious action now I will leave, go quietly, we’re all friends. If you don’t I’ll call a press conference and say the prime minister’s making a terrible decision and its going to kill thousands of people’.

“I should have gambled on holding a gun to his head essentially. And who knows if that would have worked or not, but fundamentally it was all upside given that my role was basically done at that point.

“So I apologise for not trying that.”

Paul Bristow MP prompts another string of apologies from daytime news-readers as he quotes verbatim this message (below) in his questioning of Dominic Cummings.

Hancock “used” Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty

Hancock “used Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty as shields for himself,” says Cummings.

“He used the whole ‘we’re following the science’ as a way so he could always say ‘well if things go wrong we can just blame the scientists and say its not my fault’.

“I saw him discuss that with the prime minister and I think it was one of the many appalling things that Hancock did.”

Hancock, Raab and Sunak get their report cards

Cummings says that Dominic Raab has not received enough credit for how he handled the situation when the PM was ill.

He says there were conversations about how the PM would be replaced if he’d died, that’s how serious the situation was.

He also says Rishi Sunak performed well throughout the pandemic.

Cummings says Johnson was told he shouldn’t sack Hancock, because “he’s the person you fire when the inquiry comes along”.

He also claims he called for Hancock to be sacked every week, sometimes every day.

Cummings says he will look at publishing some of the evidence he has that Hancock has lied, though he says he is wary of publishing private messages.

“What I think should happen, I think far better than me randomly throwing Whatsapps out onto the internet, is that you the MPs should force the MPs... MPs have the power to force the government to face up to this reality.”

Committee Chair Greg Clark says it is a specific requirement that Cummings evidences the claim about Hancock lying.

Gove, like Sunak, escapes the wrath of Cummings

“I don’t think really that Gove had a huge amount of responsibility in a sense for this.

“It’s not like Gove is in charge of government procurement.”

Sarah Owen MP pushes back on this, saying he is the minister responsible for the department responsible for procurement.

“I’m sure he would say that he has made some mistakes on this, but at the heart of this, we went into this with the wrong system.

Johnson not “fit and proper person” to lead

Sarah Owen MP asks whether Cummings thinks he has done his job properly.

He says : “I think there’s no doubt whatsoever that there’s many thousands of people in this country who could have done my job much better than me. That’s unarguable.”

She follows by asking whether he thinks “Boris Johnson is a fit and proper person” to get us through the pandemic?

“No,” he says.

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