Ministers backing Hancock in Cummings backlash
BORIS Johnson is a “massive supporter” of Matt Hancock, ministers have insisted.
They said the Prime Minister is “firmly behind” the Health Secretary after a string of extraordinary revelations by Dominic Cummings.
The former No10 chief revealed a private message that appeared to show Mr Johnson calling the Cabinet Minister “hopeless”.
Mr Cummings also claimed the PM is intending to quit after the next general election because “he wants to make money and have fun”.
Tory MPs slammed the claims as “nonsense” and ministers rallied behind Mr Hancock yesterday. Jesse Norman, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: “This is some of the biggest nonsense I’ve heard.
“The Prime Minister is a massive supporter of the Health Secretary, he’s firmly behind him. There can be no question of loss of confidence.”
He said the messages were “in the middle of the biggest economic and public health catastrophe for a century”.
Mr Norman added they were a “tiny snapshot of one side of the story without context or hearing from the other side”.
Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg also defended Mr Hancock following criticism by his Labour counterpart Thangam Debbonaire. Mr Rees-Mogg told MPs the text messages were “essentially the trivia, the flotsam and jetsam, the ephemera of life and fundamentally unimportant. The fact the honourable lady finds them so exciting shows how little she has to go on”.
He later described Mr Hancock as the “brilliant, one and only, successful genius” who has been running the Health Department.
No 10 has not disputed the messages’ authenticity. It said: “Our focus is not examining those images but delivering on the public’s priorities.”
Mr Cummings published one in which the PM described Mr Hancock as “totally ******* hopeless” in an exchange about testing. In another about struggles to procure ventilators, Mr Johnson responded: “It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.”