It was a week of hugely significant and potentially damning testimony.
Britain was hit by ‘widespread failure’ in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the official inquiry into the health crisis was told this week, with Dominic Cummings and other leading figures pointing to a lethal combination of recklessness and chaos.
We look at the most damning evidence presented during ‘module 2’ of the independent public inquiry into the UK’s response to, and the impact of, the Covid-19 pandemic.
Matt Hancock lied ‘time and time again’
The Inquiry was told that the former heath secretary repeatedly lied during the pandemic. Helen MacNamara, who was deputy cabinet minister at the time, agreed when she was asked by the counsel if, “Mr Hancock was telling people things that they later discovered weren’t true.”
In her witness statement, MacNamara said that shortly before the pandemic hit, Hancock had told the Cabinet “time and time again” that the government had plans in place to deal with Covid. This was not true.
MacNamara’s testimony echoes statements by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief aide during the pandemic, who said: “Hancock is unfit for this job.”
“The incompetence, the constant lies, the obsession with media bullshit over doing his job. Still no fucking serious testing in care homes, his uselessness is still killing God knows how many,” said Cummings.
Johnson said Covid ‘is nature’s way of dealing with older people’
The reality of Boris Johnson’s crass and shambolic leadership during the health crisis was also laid bare this week.
One of the most shocking revelations came from notes from the former chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance in August 2020. They read:
“[Boris Johnson was] obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going. Quite bonkers set of exchanges.”
In December 2020, Vallance noted: “Numbers are going up & up. PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not). He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’ Wants to rely on polling. Then he says, ‘We should move things to Tier 3 now.’”
Cummings claims Hancock was ‘killing god knows how many’
The former chief aide to the PM also told the Inquiry that in May 2020, he had warned Johnson about the then health secretary’s failure to test in care homes.
He said: “[Matt] Hancock is unfit for this job. The incompetence, the constant lies, the obsession with media bullshit over doing his job. Still no fucking serious testing in care homes his uselessness is still killing god knows how many. This morning you must ask him when will we get to 500k per day and where is your plan for testing all care home workers weekly.”
To which Johnson replied: “Ok and let’s get Dido Harding [the head of the test-and-trace programme] in today as well and Kate Bingham [who became chair of the UK vaccine taskforce].”
Senior servant Martin Reynolds admits WhatsApp messages in Johnson chat group were ‘set to disappear’
Martin Reynolds, one of the most senior civil servants in Downing Street in the lead-up to the 2020 pandemic, admitted to setting WhatsApp messages to “disappear,” as calls for a Covid inquiry grew. In a cross examination, Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the Inquiry, asked Reynolds why he did this. He said he can “guess” and “speculate” but he “cannot recall exactly why I did so”.
Reynolds added: “It could, for example, have been because I was worried of someone screenshotting or using some of the exchanges and leaking them.”
During Reynold’s evidence session, the Inquiry also heard that Boris Johnson had held a meeting with Russian media mogul Lord Lebedev during the height of the pandemic, that the former prime minister “blew hot and cold” on vital issues, that Dominic Cummings was the “most empowered chief of staff ever seen,” and that Johnson was described as “mad” for thinking his WhatsApp messages would not be made public.
Cummings claims Johnson asked scientists about ‘special hairdryer to kill Covid’
One revelation that earned its spot as headline news this week, was the former advisor telling the Inquiry that Johnson had asked the top scientists Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance if Covid could be destroyed by blowing a “special hairdryer” up the nose. Cummings described the moment as a “low point,” with the former PM circulating a YouTube video of a man using a device for this purpose.
The chief aide also claimed Johnson had also asked him to find a “dead cat” – a political meddling strategy to divert attention from unwanted stories – to get the coronavirus pandemic off the front pages of newspapers, because he was “sick” of it.
The public hearings for ‘module 2’ of the Covid-19 Inquiry, one of a total of six modules, will conclude on December 14, 2023.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
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