Johnson was ‘unfit for the job’ of PM
TENS of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of the Government’s failings over coronavirus and Boris Johnson is “unfit for the job” of Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings said.
The Prime Minister’s former adviser said Mr Johnson dismissed the pandemic as a “scare story” or the new “swine flu” in early 2020 as the global crisis loomed and then had to be persuaded to lock down in March.
Mr Johnson then ignored scientific advice when faced with calls for a circuit breaker in September, before saying he would rather see “bodies pile high” than announce a third lockdown, Mr Cummings said.
Mr Cummings apologised to the public, saying that ministers, officials and advisers had fallen “disastrously short” of the standards they should expect in a crisis.
He said the Prime Minister was more concerned about the impact on the economy than the need to curb the spread of coronavirus in the weeks leading up to the first lockdown.
And he was scathing about the response of the Department of Health and Social Care, claiming Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired.
The former adviser, who left Downing Street last year after a behind-the-scenes power struggle, told the MPS: “The truth is that senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its Government in a crisis like this.
“When the public needed us most, the Government failed.
“I would like to say to all the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry I am for the mistakes that were made and for my own mistakes at that.”
In a series of explosive claims, Mr Cummings said:
• The Government was not operating on a “war footing” in February 2020 as the global crisis mounted, with the Prime Minister on holiday and “lots of key people were literally skiing”.
• It was suggested chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty should inject Mr Johnson with the virus on live TV to show it was nothing to be scared of.
• Herd immunity from people catching the disease was thought to be inevitable because there was no plan to try to suppress the spread of the virus.
• Cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill told the Prime Minister to go on TV and explain the herd immunity plan by saying “it’s like the old chicken pox parties, we need people to get this disease because that’s how we get herd immunity by September”.
• The Prime Minister rejected scientific advice for a lockdown in September, instead opting to “hit and hope”.
Mr Cummings said that by the end of October 2020 his relationship with Mr Johnson had deteriorated to the extent that “fundamentally I regarded him as unfit for the job and I was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what I thought were extremely bad decisions”.