Dominic Cummings launches vicious attack on Johnson Covid-19 strategy
Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, has launched an unprecedented political assault on his former boss, effectively attacking every aspect of the Prime Minister’s coronavirus management strategy.
Addressing a highly charged House of Commons hearing – which lasted more than seven hours – Cummings claimed that “tens of thousands of people died [in the pandemic], who didn’t need to die”.
Cummings told MPs that the Prime Minister initially dismissed the Covid-19 pandemic as a “scare story” and based on that belief he was too slow to order a lockdown.
The former chief adviser and erstwhile Johnson loyalist also claimed that Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, had lied on “multiple occasions” and should have been “fired” from his job.
Engaging in rhetorical flourish, Cummings drew a sharp distinction between the roles and attitudes of health workers on the front and government officials, describing the situational dynamic as “lions” being “led by donkeys”.
To draw sympathy from parliamentarians and the broader public, Cummings demonstrated modesty by adding: “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".
For his part, Johnson tried to address some of Cummings’ incendiary claims at Prime Minister’s Questions (May 26), by insisting that the government’s priority at every stage of the pandemic had always been to “save lives”.
Cummings became an enemy of his former boss and the ruling Tories writ large after he was forced out of the heart of government last November following a bitter internal power struggle.
While Cummings’ revelations are undoubtedly damaging to the government and to the PM personally, the latter’s strategy appears to be not to over-react to his former chief advisor’s exposés with a view to minimizing its impact.
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