Key architect in a Tory disaster

■ DOMINIC Cummings has re-emerged to attack the Department of Health for its lack of PPE at the start of the Covid-19 crisis. Don’t forget a report issued in 2016 warned that Britain didn’t have enough PPE to cope with a flu outbreak, let alone coronavirus.

The Tories ignored the report because of their decade of enforced austerity. Now we’re faced with what looks like another decade of the same.

First on the list are the nurses offered a paltry 1% deal which is, in effect, a pay cut.

Johnson, who backed his sidekick Cummings over the Barnard Castle eye test fiasco, is hiding from a public inquiry because he’s fully aware he’ll be taken to the cleaners. There must be an immediate public inquiry, so the same mistakes are not repeated.

Bill Cook, Teignmouth, Devon

■ So, the great disaster that is Dominic Cummings has said the Department of Health was an “absolute total disaster” and a “smoking ruin”. I wonder if he ever sits down and reflects on his time in Downing Street... the trip to Barnard Castle, the rose garden interview, get Brexit done. That was all an absolute disaster. So now the only “smoking ruin” is his career, and he seeks to absolve himself from the disaster he helped to create. What hypocrisy. Keith Bowman Chesterfield, Derbys

■ I’m not a fan of Dominic Cummings but it seems he warned about the Department of Health’s disastrous and expensive

procurement system before 2020. He testified to MPs that billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was wasted on obtaining PPE. You have to wonder what else he would testify to.

The Government’s handling of the pandemic has been a fiasco from the outset and the British public will foot the bill for years to come. Well done to all those who voted for this pathetic lot.

Dave Mellor, Warrington

■ So, Dominic Cummings has attacked the Department of Health over its lack of PPE and the chaotic and expensive way in which it obtains supplies. Strange how he kept quiet about the billions wasted on the handing out of private contracts to cronies during the course of this pandemic.

The man is driven by his ego and has no loyalty or allegiance to anyone but himself. If I was the PM I’d be worried about what he might reveal next.

M McKay, Liverpool

■ Cummings said the pandemic left the Department of Health a “smoking ruin”. But this happened before Covid due to this and previous Tory governments’ chronic underfunding.

The likes of Cummings and his ex-Tory paymasters would love to see the demise of the NHS so we get a US-style insurance system we all have to pay for.

Stu Smith, North London

■ Cummings has started to spill the beans about what went on behind the doors of Downing Street when the pandemic hit.

I agree with his grim assessment of Matt Hancock’s department Hancock himself is like an accident waiting to happen. Nor do I believe Johnson’s remorse for all the lives lost through his mishandling of Covid. The PM and his ministers simply can’t be trusted.

Tony Howard, Salford

■ It’s fascinating how Cummings can bleat about a divisive atmosphere in the government of which he was a key architect.

Did he mention Test and Trace or cronyism? He has refused to be accountable and only wanted to satisfy his need for control. I wouldn’t trust him to run a bath. Frank West, via Facebook