Boris Johnson allegedly said “covid is only killing 80-year-olds” when he resisted a second lockdown last autumn, according to his former adviser Dominic Cummings.
The lurid claim that the Prime Minister wanted to protect the economy over saving lives is due to be part of the bombshell evidence Cummings will give to give MPs on Wednesday.
Cummings is out for revenge after being sacked from Downing Street last year and is to give insider evidence to MPs investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Ahead of the session it was also reported he will say the PM again compared himself to the fictional Major in the film Jaws, who insisted on keeping the beaches open despite the danger posed by the huge shark.
According to ITN political editor Robert Peston, Cummings will claim that Johnson said: “I’m going to be the mayor of Jaws, like I should have been in March”.
Cummings is poised to give potentially damning testimony on the government’s handling of coronavirus, and particularly the decision to delay lockdown last September, when he appears in front of a joint session of the Commons Health and Science committees.
Cummings will appear a year and a day after his own infamous Downing Street garden briefing in which he attempted to defend his rule-breaking trips to Durham and Barnard Castle during the first national lockdown.
Among the claims he has rehearsed ahead of his appearance Cummings has insisted that a herd immunity strategy to let the virus run through society was the UK government’s initial plan to respond to covid-19.
The former Downing Street insider claims public documents backed up his claims and described a denial by the health secretary, Matt Hancock as “b******t”.
He said the strategy was only ditched when ministers feared it would lead to mass deaths and an economic “implosion”.
Cummings is also set accuse the prime minister of missing key Cobra meetings because he was working on a biography of Shakespeare and needed the money to fund his divorce from Marina Wheeler.
As well as his own behaviour Cummings is also likely be quizzed about claims that Johnson declared “no more f***ing lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands” while deciding whether to introduce a second national lockdown in England weeks later than recommended by the government’s scientific advisers.
While Cummings may do his best to damage the Prime Minister Downing Street thinks his reputation is so trashed with the public because of his lockdown jaunts that he will not be taken seriously.
Cummings was sacked from Downing Street last November along with ally and communications chief Lee Cain after a power struggle with Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds and amid allegations that the pair had been briefing against the Prime Minister.
