Cummings: ‘PM put economy before elderly’
BORIS Johnson allegedly said “Covid is only killing 80-yearolds” when he resisted a second lockdown last autumn, his former adviser Dominic Cummings claims.
The allegation, reported by ITV News in which it is claimed the Prime Minister wanted to protect the economy over saving lives, is expected to be part of astonishing evidence Mr Cummings will give to MPs today.
His former adviser is said to be out for revenge after being sacked from Downing Street last year and is promising to give a warts-and-all account of the Government’s handling of the pandemic.
Damaging
Downing Street is braced for a damaging onslaught from the Vote Leave maverick with government sources calling him a “rank hypocrite” who is trying to “rewrite history”.
Ministers have also rejected repeated claims of a strategy of herd immunity in the early days of the pandemic.
Mr Cummings will also reportedly say the Prime Minister compared himself to the mayor in the film Jaws, who kept the beaches open despite the threat of the huge shark.
ITN political editor Robert Peston says Mr Cummings will claim that his ex-boss said: “I’m going to be the mayor of Jaws, like I should have been in March.” His appearance before the Commons Health and Science committees comes a year and a day after his infamous Downing Street garden briefing in which he attempted to defend his rule-breaking trips to Durham and Barnard Castle during the first national lockdown.
In a lengthy Twitter thread, he has already said the early strategy of herd immunity was only ditched amid ministers’ fears of mass deaths and an economic “implosion”.
Mr Cummings is also set to accuse the Prime Minister of missing key Cobra meetings because he was working on a biography of Shakespeare and needed the money to fund his divorce from Marina Wheeler.
He was sacked last November along with ally and communications chief Lee Cain after a power struggle with Mr Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds. There were claims the pair had been briefing against the PM.
Today’s appearance comes amid claims Tory MPs fear Mr Cummings and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove are working together to try to oust Mr Johnson from No 10.
Some Conservative backbenchers believe Mr Cummings could make a comeback at the heart of a Gove premiership.
The claims were dismissed as “absurd conspiracy theories” by friends of Mr Gove.