Dominic Cummings’ select committee LIVE: Boris Johnson’s former adviser appears before MPs | Cummings says people died unnecessarily because of Government failings | Grant Shapps accuses Cummings appearance as 'sideshow' | One year on from Barnard Castle press conference
The Prime Minister’s former chief advisor has been vocal in his condemnation of Boris Johnson Health Secretary Matt Hancock, and others since leaving Government after a behind-the-scenes power struggle in November.
You can follow all the updates here as Cummings gives evidence to a joint inquiry of the Commons Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees.
Dominic Cummings’ select committee RECAP: Boris Johnson’s former adviser appears before MPs
Key Events
- Dominic Cummings claims Boris Johnson suggested getting injected with coronavirus ‘live on TV’
- Cummings says Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, should have been fired for “lying”.
- Cummings claims PM described Covid as “new swine flu”
- “We fell disastrously short of standards,” says Cummings
Cummings: Economic concerns outweighed all others for PM
Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson favoured the economic arguments for not imposing a second lockdown.
Asked if the economic arguments were outweighing everything, the former aide said: “For the Prime Minister, yes.”
Dominic CummingsPeople need to understand how the Government failed them when they needed it. 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 exactly the same consequences?
Cummings complains of deja vu over Indian variant
Mr Cummings said it was “completely in character with No 10” that India was not put on the red list for travel restrictions straight away.
And he said it was “deja vu” all over again when asked about the confusion over travel arrangements seen in recent weeks.
Johnson wanted to be the ‘major of Jaws’ and ‘keep the beaches open'
Boris Johnson was “cross” with advisers for convincing him to impose the first lockdown, and later thought he had been “gamed” on NHS numbers, according to Dominic Cummings.
The former chief aide to the Prime Minister told the Commons committee: “There’s a great misunderstanding people have that because it nearly killed him therefore he must’ve taken it seriously.
“But in fact after the first lockdown his view was… he was cross with me and for others with what he regarded as basically pushing him into the first lockdown.
“His argument after that happened was, literally quote, ‘I should’ve been the mayor of Jaws and keep 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, etc, etc. His argument then was we shouldn’t have done the first lockdown and I’m not going to make the same mistake again.
“He also essentially thought that he’d been gamed on the numbers in the first lockdown and thought the NHS would somehow have got through…”
Cummings on Eat Out to Help Out
Dominic Cummings said he could not remember whether he was opposed to the Eat Out to Help Out scheme.
“I was opposed to the general strategy the Prime Minister set out,” Mr Cummings told MPs.
But pushed by chairman of the Health Select Committee Jeremy Hunt whether he – or anyone – advised against it, he said: “I can’t really remember conversations, to be honest, about Eat Out to Help Out out specifically.”
When Mr Hunt suggested it was “quite a big initiative”, Mr Cummings said: “I suppose in the grand scheme of things it didn’t seem like that at the time.”
He said he was “definitely” in meetings when it was discussed “but at that point, I basically lost the argument on the approach”.
Cummings on his relationship with PM
Dominic CummingsBy 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.
Cummings: Cabinet met to ‘find Johnson’s successor’
Cummings said there were talks about potentially calling a Cabinet to find a possible replacement for Boris Johnson as he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus.
The former chief aide to the Prime Minister told the Commons committee: “Dominic Raab has not got nearly enough credit that he should’ve done because he had to step into an extraordinarily difficult situation with the Prime Minister on his deathbed.
“When Raab took over there was a conversation in No 10 with the cabinet secretary and Lee Cain, the director of communications, about calling a Cabinet to try and find a replacement for the Prime Minister in case he died, that’s how serious the situation was.”
Cummings: PM kept Hancock in post to fire him later
Dominic Cummings has alleged that Boris Johnson was advised to keep Matt Hancock as Health Secretary because “he’s the person you fire when an inquiry comes along”.
The former chief aide to the Prime Minister told the Commons committee: “It’s definitely the case that the Prime Minister was told that, contrary to my view… I said sack him, I said sack him almost every week, sometimes almost every day.
“He was told though that you should not sack him, you should keep him there because he’s the person you fire when an inquiry comes along.
“My counterargument to that was if you leave him there we’re going to have another set of disasters in the autumn, and that’s the critical thing.
“Forget the inquiry, the inquiry, God knows when that’ll bloody happen, we’ve got to get rid of this guy now because every single week things are going disastrously wrong.”
Whitty and Vallance ‘used as shields'
Asked whether Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance were ever used during press conferences as “political props”, Mr Cummings told MPs: “I certainly believe that the Secretary of State Matt Hancock used Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty as shields for himself, yes.
“He used the whole ‘we’re following the science’ as a way so that he could always say, ‘well if things go wrong, we’ll blame the scientists and it’s not my fault’.
“I saw him discuss that with the Prime Minister and I think it was one of the many appalling things Hancock did.”
Asked whether Mr Johnson did not sack Mr Hancock because it would reflect on his own mistakes, Mr Cummings said: “It’s definitely the case that the Prime Minister was told that, contrary to my view – I said sack him almost every week, sometimes almost every day – he was told, though, that you should not sack him, you should keep him there because he’s the person you fire when the inquiry comes along.
“My counter argument was if you leave him there, we’re going to have another set of disasters in the autumn, and that’s the critical thing.
“Forget the inquiry, God knows when that will bloody happen, we’ve got to get rid of this guy now because every single week things are going disastrously wrong.”
Cummings says local lockdowns were ‘full of holes'
Dominic Cummings has said the way local lockdowns were implemented “was full of holes”.
The former chief aide to the Prime Minister told the Commons committee: “In practice the way it was actually worked out and the way it was actually implemented was full of holes and extremely problematic to say the least, in practice. But the basic concept has to be right.”
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