Boris Johnson is facing a barrage of criticism over his handling of the pandemic from former adviser, Dominic Cummings.
Giving evidence to MPs the former Downing Street aide unleashed a salvo of accusations against his former boss, admitting that the government “disastrously” failed the public when people needed them most.
Cummings said complacency in Downing Street and disbelief from the Prime Minister led to the UK suffering the worst pandemic death toll in Europe.
He insisted that he warned the Prime Minister to go for a hard and fast lockdown on the evening of March 11, a week before the advice was issued for the public to stay at home, but that the Downing Street operation descended into chaos the following morning.
Cummings told MPs that planned Cobra security meetings had been diverted onto a request from President Donald Trump for the UK to be involved in a Middle East bombing campaign and demands from Carrie Symonds, the PM’s fiancée, over press stories about her dog.
He said: "We had a completely insane situation.
"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 began with an apology for his own shortcomings, but levelled the blame at the whole government saying there had been no plan to deal with the pandemic.
He said: "The whole thing seemed like an out of control movie."
“This is like a scene from Independence Day with Jeff Goldblum saying the aliens are here and your whole plan is broken… that is what the scene was like that morning”
Dominic Cummings said it became clear in early March that “there was no lockdown plan… it doesn’t exist”
Cummings claimed that on March 13 Helen McNamara, the Deputy Cabinet Secretary, the second in command of the UK civil service, allegedly came into No 10 and said: “We’re absolutely f****d, we’re going to kill thousands”.
What are the claims Cummings has made so far:
- The government fell “disastrously short” in its pandemic response
- There was “no sense of urgency” in Downing Street in February 2020
- He advised PM not attend Cobra meetings in Feb 2020 because Johnson saw covid as a “scare story”
- PM wanted to be injected with Covid-19 live on TV
- Herd immunity was seen as the inevitable response to the pandemic
- There was no lockdown plan available to Downing Street
