Thursday, May 27, 2021
Cummings delivers a broadside but is anybody listening?
A few days ago I posited the question as to whether Dominc Cummings' evidence would be a smoking gun or a damp squib. I suggested that Boris Johnson's popularity appears to be immune to the sort of accusations Cummings was making.
It will be a few more days before that theory can be tested, but by any normal political convention, the Prime Minister should be on the ropes taking an eight-count.
It will be a few more days before that theory can be tested, but by any normal political convention, the Prime Minister should be on the ropes taking an eight-count.
The Guardian says Dominic Cummings laid bare the “surreal” chaos in Downing Street in March last year as the government grappled with the Covid pandemic, portraying the prime minister as obsessed with the media and making constant U-turns, “like a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”:
During an extraordinary evidence session to MPs at Westminster on Wednesday, Boris Johnson’s former chief aide targeted the prime minister for personal criticism, accusing him of being “unfit for the job”.
He claimed that Johnson regretted the first lockdown and held out against imposing later restrictions, despite the advice of many people inside Downing Street, and that overall, “tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die”.
Cummings told MPs the prime minister had repeatedly said in respect of the first lockdown, “I should have been the mayor of Jaws and kept the beaches open,” and confirmed reports that in October, Johnson said he would see “bodies pile high” rather than order a third lockdown.
The general situation in Downing Street was described as “an out-of-control movie” and, in particularly incendiary claims about Matt Hancock, Cummings said the health secretary had lied to the public and fellow ministers, arguing that amounted to “criminal” behaviour.
He said that in January and February 2020, as news of the pandemic emerged from Wuhan, ministers and senior officials fell victim to what he described as “literally a classic historical example of groupthink in action”.
He said the prime minister himself had repeatedly played down the seriousness of the disease, calling it a “scare story” and comparing it to swine flu. Cummings even claimed officials had deliberately kept Johnson out of emergency Cobra meetings.
“Certainly, the view of various officials inside No 10 was if we have the PM chair Cobra meetings, and he just tells everyone, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’m going to get [England’s chief medical officer] Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus, so everyone realises it’s nothing to be frightened of,’ that would not help, actually, serious planning.”
He claimed that only in mid-March was an initial plan to pursue “herd immunity”, by allowing the virus to spread but delaying the peak of the outbreak, belatedly abandoned. Herd immunity “was the whole logic of all the discussions in January and February and early March”, Cummings told the committee.
Cummings' testimony was certainly damaging, but if Boris Johnson appears unconcerned then maybe the reason lies in a YouGov poll published last month in which 22% of those asked said they believe the PM, while only 16% believe Cummings. Forty six percent believe neither of them.
During an extraordinary evidence session to MPs at Westminster on Wednesday, Boris Johnson’s former chief aide targeted the prime minister for personal criticism, accusing him of being “unfit for the job”.
He claimed that Johnson regretted the first lockdown and held out against imposing later restrictions, despite the advice of many people inside Downing Street, and that overall, “tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die”.
Cummings told MPs the prime minister had repeatedly said in respect of the first lockdown, “I should have been the mayor of Jaws and kept the beaches open,” and confirmed reports that in October, Johnson said he would see “bodies pile high” rather than order a third lockdown.
The general situation in Downing Street was described as “an out-of-control movie” and, in particularly incendiary claims about Matt Hancock, Cummings said the health secretary had lied to the public and fellow ministers, arguing that amounted to “criminal” behaviour.
He said that in January and February 2020, as news of the pandemic emerged from Wuhan, ministers and senior officials fell victim to what he described as “literally a classic historical example of groupthink in action”.
He said the prime minister himself had repeatedly played down the seriousness of the disease, calling it a “scare story” and comparing it to swine flu. Cummings even claimed officials had deliberately kept Johnson out of emergency Cobra meetings.
“Certainly, the view of various officials inside No 10 was if we have the PM chair Cobra meetings, and he just tells everyone, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’m going to get [England’s chief medical officer] Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus, so everyone realises it’s nothing to be frightened of,’ that would not help, actually, serious planning.”
He claimed that only in mid-March was an initial plan to pursue “herd immunity”, by allowing the virus to spread but delaying the peak of the outbreak, belatedly abandoned. Herd immunity “was the whole logic of all the discussions in January and February and early March”, Cummings told the committee.
Cummings' testimony was certainly damaging, but if Boris Johnson appears unconcerned then maybe the reason lies in a YouGov poll published last month in which 22% of those asked said they believe the PM, while only 16% believe Cummings. Forty six percent believe neither of them.
It is a plague on both their houses, and nobody knows if the seven hours of testimony from the former Prime Ministerial advisor will change anything.
