‘Disgraceful’ Hancock condemned

UK Government Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired over coronavirus failings and “criminal, disgraceful behaviour” on the testing target, Dominic Cummings said.

Boris Johnson’s former aide also said Whitehall’s top official recommended to the Prime Minister that Mr Hancock should be sacked.

Downing Street did not deny that the Prime Minister considered sacking Mr Hancock in April last year, but insisted Boris Johnson has confidence in the Health Secretary now.

Mr Cummings said there were around 20 reasons why Mr Hancock should have been thrown out of the Cabinet – including, he claimed, lying both in meetings and publicly.

Mr Hancock used chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance as “shields” to blame for his failures, Mr Cummings claimed. He said Mr Hancock performed “disastrously” below the standards expected and the cabinet secretary – the country’s top civil servant – recommended the Health Secretary should be sacked.

Mr Cummings said that while Donald Trump was ordering the CIA to “gazump” rival countries on orders for personal protective equipment (PPE), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) was still trying to get orders from China by ship.

“I think the Secretary of State for Health should’ve been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the Cabinet room and publicly,” Mr Cummings said.

“There’s no doubt at all that many senior people performed far, far disastrously below the standards which the country has a right to expect. I think the Secretary of State for Health is certainly one of those people. “I said repeatedly to the Prime Minister that he should be fired, so did the cabinet secretary, so did many other senior people.”