Cummings Says It’s Crazy Johnson Is PM: U.K. Politics Update
Johnson #Johnson
(Bloomberg) — Boris Johnson is facing an onslaught of criticism over his handling of the pandemic and his suitability to be British prime minister from his former adviser Dominic Cummings.
Giving evidence to a parliamentary hearing, Cummings said Johnson did not take the Covid crisis seriously enough at the start and isn’t suited to the role of premier. He said ministers had “disastrously” failed the public, revealing that he had repeatedly urged Johnson to fire Health Secretary Matt Hancock for allegedly lying.
The risk for Johnson is that the revelations bring an abrupt end to the run of positive headlines he’s received over the U.K.’s successful vaccine rollout, and optimism over the end of lockdown, even though Cummings himself is a controversial character.
Key Developments: Cummings tells MPs Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired for lyingCummings says Johnson made very bad decisions Cummings says he’s sorry, and if government had acted sooner many people would still be aliveJohnson is taking questions in House of Commons Johnson Made ‘Very Bad’ Mistakes (11:50 a.m.)
“There is no doubt the prime minister made some very bad misjudgments and got some very serious things wrong,” Cummings told the hearing. “It’s also the case that he was extremely badly let down by the system failure — and I include myself in that.”
The former aide said he went to work for Johnson in 2019 to help save the country from chaos and avoid a second referendum on Brexit, in a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government.
At that time, the U.K. was consumed with deadlocked Brexit negotiations and the toxic politics of a hung parliament.
Cummings: It’s ‘Crackers’ That Johnson Is PM (11:10 a.m.) 
Boris Johnson departs 10 Downing Street on May 26.
Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
In a damning aside, Cummings made clear that he does not believe Johnson should be prime minister. He said it was “crazy” that he should have been appointed to such a senior role advising the premier, “just as it’s crackers that Boris was there and Jeremy Corbyn was up at the election.”
He said he briefed the BBC during the pandemic to correct the record and knock down untrue media reports. But he didn’t tell Johnson about all his contacts with journalists because “the prime minister is already about 1,000 times too obsessed with the media” to be able to focus properly on his job.
Cummings Says Hancock Should Have Been Fired (10:50 a.m.)
Cummings said he advised Johnson to fire Health Secretary Matt Hancock over his handling of the pandemic, including for allegedly lying over the pandemic. He said even the Cabinet Secretary said he’d lost confidence in Hancock’s honesty in internal meetings.
“The Secretary of State for Health should have been fired for 15/20 things,” Cummings said. “I said to the prime minister he should have been fired; so did the Cabinet Secretary; so did many other senior people.”
Matt Hancock on May 26.
Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
‘Disaster Movie’ Lockdown Idea Felt ‘Surreal’ (10:35 a.m.)
Cummings gave a dramatic account of the sense of panic that gripped Johnson’s team as the full scale of the pandemic threat dawned on them in mid-March 2020.
He told MPs it was clear that a lockdown should have been imposed weeks earlier than it was, but the idea of hitting the public with such draconian restrictions seemed “surreal.” He likened the briefings that took place inside Downing Street to scenes from the disaster movie, Independence Day.
Only when modeling was presented that forecast the NHS would be overwhelmed did Cummings and others realise that a “Plan B” was urgently required. One top official walked into the room and said: “We are absolutely f***ed,” Cummings recalled. “I said, ‘I think you’re right. I think it’s a disaster.’”
On Saturday March 14, Cummings told Johnson lockdown measures would be needed. “But there was no lockdown plan.”
Carrie Symonds Went ‘Crackers’ Over Dog Story (10:25 a.m.)
Cummings described a day of chaos in Johnson’s Downing Street office on March 12. He said the government’s emergency committee due to discuss Covid-19 was disrupted by national security concerns over a request from then U.S. President Donald Trump for the U.K. to join a military campaign in Iraq.
Meanwhile Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds was asking the press office to refute claims in a newspaper report about her dog, Dilyn, Cummings said.
“Part of the building was arguing about whether we were going to bomb Iraq, part was arguing about whether we were going to quarantine or not, and the prime minister’s girlfriend was going crackers about something completely trivial,” Cummings said.
Officials Thought Public Wouldn’t Accept Lockdown (10:20 a.m.)
Cummings said he texted Johnson and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance on the night of March 11 saying the government should move urgently to impose restrictions on the country.
But he said the view inside government at that time was that lockdown measures would simply delay the impact of the virus and “just mean a second peak later.”
He said both the Department of Health and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) assumed that both lockdowns and a proper testing and tracking program would not be accepted by the public.
Johnson Thought Covid Was ‘Scare Story’ (9:50 a.m.)
Boris Johnson regarded coronavirus as a “scare story” in February 2020 and described it as “the new swine flu”, Cummings told the MPs.
He said government officials thought it would be best if the prime minister did not chair emergency Cobra meetings.
“The view of various officials inside Number 10 was if we have the prime minister chairing Cobra meetings and he just tells everyone it’s swine flu, don’t worry about it, I’m going to get [chief medical officer] Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus so everyone realizes it’s nothing to be frightened of, that would not help serious planning.”
‘People Were Literally Skiing’ as Crisis Unfolded (9:45 a.m.)
Cummings was critical of how slowly the government was to realise the scale of the crisis in the early months of 2020. He said Covid was raised with the prime minister in the first half of January but was not the administration’s top priority until the final days of February.
“In no way shape or form did the government act in January like it was the most important thing,” Cummings said. “The government and Number 10 were not operating in a war-footing in February. Lots of people were literally skiing in the middle of February.”
“In retrospect I should have hit the panic button much more than I was in February,” Cummings said.
Cummings: Ministers ‘Fell Disastrously Short’ (9:35 a.m.)
Dominic Cummings began his testimony to Parliament by telling MPs that “senior ministers, senior officials, advisers fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect in a crisis like this.”
“When the public needed us most, the government failed,” Cummings said. “I want to say sorry.”
Shapps: Cummings’s Appearance a ‘Sideshow’ (Earlier)
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps dismissed Cummings’s appearance in Parliament as a “side show.”
“I’ll leave others to determine how reliable a witness to all this he is,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.
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