‘I don’t read the papers’ – PM

Except on Dominic Cummings...

‘I DON’T read the papers’. This one glib comment by Boris Johnson to a senior committee of MPs explained why public confidence in his handling of Covid-19 is being so tested.

The Prime Minister was responding to questions on his knowledge of the scientific evidence that has shaped his Government’s response to a pandemic which has killed nearly 40,000 people.

He did stress, however, that he had read the ‘papers’ with regard to media coverage about the trip made to Durham and Barnard Castle by his senior aide Dominic Cummings in breach of the lockdown, and that a number of allegations were untrue. But his general evasiveness explains why the Cummings controversy will not now pass until Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, is asked to undertake an independent inquiry that could resolve this matter.

Unlike the Covid science, Mr Johnson says he has studied the evidence and was satisfied that the lockdown laws had not been broken. Yet he declined the chance to publish the relevant documents. He was even more coy about whether he had sought Sir Mark’s counsel. In short, he’s expecting the public to take him on trust.

However this simply won’t suffice given the prevailing mistrust as calls from Tory MPs for Mr Cummings to be sacked intensify while Downing Street appears to find itself in a growing state of chaos judging by the incoherence of many of Mr Johnson’s answers. No wonder he isn’t committing to future inquisitions by the Liaison Committee.

If Mr Johnson believes his aide has done nothing wrong, then he has nothing to fear – and everything to gain – from such an inquiry that would have the power to negate the incendiary charge, made by West Yorkshire MP Yvette Cooper and others, that he’s placing the fate of Mr Cummings before the nation’s public health. What’s stopping you, Prime Minister?