Boris Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings has published a WhatsApp exchange in which the Prime Minister appeared to describe UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s performance as “totally f***ing hopeless”.
The former Downing Street adviser renewed his attacks on the UK Health Secretary on Wednesday in a blogpost detailing evidence of what he described as the "covid disaster" caused by Hancock.
Cummings, who left his post as Boris Johnson’s most senior aide last year, made vicious comments about Hancock at to a joint Commons committee inquiry into lessons learned from the Covid outbreak last month.
He he repeatedly said Hancock should have been sacked for incompetence and dishonesty but failed to follow up with proof for a number of allegations against the health secretary.
Hancock, in his appearance before the committee, dismissed claims that he had lied to the PM, mishandled PPE contracts and bungled the discharge of patients into care homes.
Now in a lengthy blogpost Cummings has published what appears to be screenshots of whatsapp messages from the Prime Minister.
One screengrab appears to show the PM describing Hancock as "totally f**king hopeless".
In an extensive 7,20 word blog published on Wednesday Cummings published screengrabs and wrote a string of claims that the Prime Minister wanted to fire Hancock during the height of the pandemic.
He wrote: "Evidence on the covid disaster: as the PM said himself, Hancock's performance on testing, procurement, PPE, care homes etc was 'totally fucking hopeless', & his account to MPs was fiction".
At Prime Minister's Questions Ian Blackford MP called on Johnson to clarify the authenticity of the Cummings blog after Labour leader Keir Starmer did not raise the issue.
But the SNP Westminster leader lobbed in the question with a number of claims about the Australian trade deal allowing Johnson the opportunity to avoid answering.
Labour’s Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders MP said afterwards that the alleged texts highlighted the need to start a public inquiry immediately.
Madders said: “This is more evidence that the Conservatives were too slow to lockdown, too slow to deliver PPE and too slow to protect our care homes. “With this evidence that even the PM thinks Hancock is useless, why in the worst pandemic in our history has he left him in charge?”
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