The boss of NHS England has refused to answer a question about if he thinks UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock is "useless".
Sir Simon Steven, the Chief Executive of the National Health Service in England, was asked by a journalist in a clip for TV if he had confidence in Hancock but didn't give a response to back the Tory Minister.
It comes just a day after Boris Johnson 's former special adviser Dominic Cummings released a number of WhatsApp messages between the pair in which the Prime Minister appears to call Hancock "hopeless" and "useless".
He was asked: "Do you believe the Health Secretary is useless?"
Stevens pauses and smirks before saying: "I mean, that is a political question."
The reporter responds: "But having worked with him do you have confidence in him?"
A press officers says Stevens won't be answering the question as it wasn't agreed in advance.
Cummings made vicious comments about Hancock at a joint Commons committee inquiry into lessons learned from the Covid outbreak last month.
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.
In a lengthy blogpost Cummings has published what appears to be screenshots of messages from the Prime Minister.
One screengrab appears to show the PM describing Hancock as "totally f*****g hopeless".
What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.
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".
Responding to the video Cummings tweeted: "S Stevens remembers v well the mtng, as PM recovered in Chequers, when Hancock tried to throw him under bus in Cabinet room over PPE running out, then the CHX... And he knows the Cabinet Secretary told No10: Hancock's claims are false, he's not telling the truth in these mtngs."
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