Today it was the turn of the Vote Leave gang to appear before the Covid Inquiry. And while Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s onetime director of comms, gave a fairly sober appearance this morning, the arrival of Dominic Cummings produced the expectant headlines. Much of Cummings’ evidence today had first been revealed two-and-a-half years ago during his mammoth nine hour session before a special parliamentary select committee. But there were fresh messages and tense exchanges for the attendant hacks to chew over and fill tomorrow’s newspapers. Below are four flashpoints from today’s Covid Inquiry evidence session.
X-rated language
One of the first questions was for Cummings to explain his texts, published this morning, that branded Johnson’s cabinet ‘fuck pigs,’ ‘morons’ and ‘cunts.’ He said that, er, if anything, the language understated the problem: ‘I was reflecting a widespread view amongst competent people at the centre of power at the time about the caliber of people.’ Jolly good.
Sir Humphrey’s botched briefings
The name of Simon Case, the embattled Cabinet Secretary, has featured prominently throughout the coverage of this Inquiry. But it was his predecessor, Lord Sedwill, who was brought up at today’s evidence session. The Inquiry’s lead counsel Hugo Keith KC asked Cummings about a reference to Sedwill in March 2020 saying that the government should liken Covid to chickenpox and reference the chickenpox parties of the past. But, according to Cummings, Sedwill was told that this comparison was wrong, because chicken pox does not spread exponentially and, in so doing, kill thousands of people. He says this was a ‘crystallising moment’ as it showed that the most senior civil servant in the country was being wrongly briefed. It was not the only example, in Cummings’ testimony, of Whitehall’s mandarins getting bad advice in early 2020.
Then Health Secretary Matt Hancock allegedly told the cabinet that a person was unlikely to get Covid without a temperature or a cough, even though Cummings says that Hancock was told by scientists that this wasn’t true. He also told the Inquiry that the Department of Health’s graphs were all out of date, the NHS graphs were off their trajectory and the Cabinet Office graphs were completely wrong yet kept appearing in the briefing packs a fortnight later. Sounds like Whitehall’s problems go much deeper than Boris, Dom et al…
Misogyny row
One of Cummings’ more awkward moments was when Hugo Keith asked if he contributed to the atmosphere of contempt and misogyny in No. 10 that was identified in an internal report, first published yesterday. ‘Certainly not’, replied Johnson’s former aide. Keith then presented the Inquiry with internal messages that refer to Helen McNamara, the Deputy Cabinet Secretary and the then most senior female member of the civil service.
In one, Cummings said he would like to handcuff McNamara and remove her from the building, because they cannot keep ‘dodging stilettos from that cunt.’ Cummings’ defence? That while his language was ‘obviously appalling’, he was ‘much ruder about men’ and used similar language or worse about Johnson. Talk about an equal opportunities offender…
Cummings blocked Boris
Much of the evidence in the past two days of hearings has felt more like an episode of Gossip Girl rather than Holby City, with various protagonists at the top of the government all bemoaning one another over WhatsApp. So it was in that spirit that the relationship between Boris Johnson and his onetime Svengali ended. The then premier messaged his ex-aide in November 2020 to complain of briefings against him and his wife: ‘This is a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism by a government that should be solving a national crisis.’ Cummings responded by blocking his ex-boss. Ouch.
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