The Covid investigation has just exposed some really eye-opening evidence from those who contacted the government at the time at the start of the pandemic.
Over the past week, personal WhatsApps and adviser memos have been made public, while former government advisers provided damning evidence of Boris Johnson’s leadership as Covid began to take hold in the UK.
Claims published last week about what was really going on behind the doors of Downing Street, the worst fitness crisis in fashion history, stunned the country.
So here’s a look at some of the top indictments — and maximum fees — presented to the inquiry chair this week.
Johnson’s most sensible adviser at the time, Dominic Cummings, claimed in his written testimony that the prime minister was distracted by finalizing his divorce, his “financial problems” and the fact that his then-girlfriend was looking to “finalize the announcement of their engagement. “since the beginning of 2020.
Cummings also claimed that the Prime Minister “wanted to work on his Shakespeare book”, even as foreign fears about Covid began to grow.
Johnson’s former communications director, Lee Cain, sent a message to Cummings in early 2020, saying the prime minister “doesn’t think [Covid] is a big deal and he doesn’t think anything can be done and his focus is elsewhere. “
The message added: “He thinks it’s going to be like swine flu and he thinks his biggest danger is to cause an economic downturn. “
The messages to Cain showed that Cummings believed Johnson would “melt away” when Covid cases began to rise.
The aide envisioned the prime minister in “Shark Mode,” a reference to the 1970s movie in which the mayor kept beaches open to the public despite continuous shark attacks.
Cummings claimed to have told Johnson that the NHS was imploding like a “zombie apocalypse movie”; However, the prime minister did not impose the blockade for another 12 days because he was “wobbling” and could not decide.
“Anyone who has worked with the prime minister for a while gets tired of him,” Cain said in the inquiry.
He added that Johnson can be “quite a complicated character” because he can’t make a decision.
He added that Covid is not “the right crisis for the capabilities of this prime minister” as it demands “quick decisions”.
Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s personal secretary at the time, echoed that message, saying at the inquiry that the prime minister had “thrown off balance” in his plans to address major issues, leading to “very complicated consequences. “
WhatsApp messages uncovered by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who is still on the job, expressed similar views. He wrote: “THIS HAS TO STOP!
“Government [sic] is rarely that hard, but this guy makes things impossible. “
In personal messages to Cain, the prime minister’s most sensible aide at the time called the ministers “useless imbeciles, idiots, bastards, actually. “
Pressed through the messages, Cummings apologized for his language, telling the inquiry that he “underestimated the position as occasions in 2020 have shown. “
“My appalling language is clearly my own, but my judgment of many senior officials is widespread,” Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former senior adviser, is asked about his use of language to describe ministers. Follow the Covid survey live: https:/ /t. co/AZvfa79mCC pic. twitter. com/8JD9x8WHXx
Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary between 2020 and 2021, said she realized 10 days before the first national lockdown that there was no plan by the government to address the crisis.
He said he spoke with a Health Department official, Mark Sweeney, who “for years had been told there was a total plan” to deal with a pandemic.
But 10 days before the shutdown, he said there were none.
According to Cummings, MacNamara told him and other colleagues, “I think we’re screwed, I think this country is headed for disaster, I think we’re going to kill thousands of people. “
Cumming also claimed that there is no coverage plan for other vulnerable people and warned that the Cabinet Office had tried to “prevent” Number 10 from introducing one.
Case denounced the indecision that aims to slow down the government, blaming the prime minister and his closest ministers in a WhatsApp address to Cummings.
“Government [sic] is rarely that hard, but this guy makes things impossible. “
He then appointed former fitness secretary Matt Hancock, education secretary Gavin Williamson and head of testing and research Dido Harding to be part of a “weak team” led by a captain who adjusts the call for “major games every day. “
The fitness secretary at the time thought he would have to make a decision on who would do it if the NHS was beaten at the height of Covid, according to England’s former NHS chief executive.
The inquiry asked Sir Simon Stevens what would happen if care in the NHS was rationed.
Stevens said Hancock “has taken the position that, in this situation, it is he, and not the medical career or the public, who ultimately deserves to live and die. “
Stevens said he disagreed with the then-fitness secretary and that those decisions would be made through doctors.
However, he believed that Hancock could be trusted “for the most part”.
MacNamara said in the inquest that the fitness secretary “regularly” told his colleagues things “which they later found to be true. “
He said that in April 2020 there was “a lack of confidence in what he was saying was happening,” that is, when he said the case was under control, and then it turned out it wasn’t.
He said Hancock had told ministers “time and time again” that he had a plan to deal with Covid, but it never materialised.
Cummings echoed that claim, saying Hancock had “wreaked havoc” by insisting early on that other people with a dry cough and temperature would not suffer from Covid, even though they are the two most prominent symptoms.
He also warned that Hancock is a “proven liar,” a “troublemaker” and an “imbecile. “
When MacNamara asked him what he thought about the day-to-day tasks of his job in the midst of a fitness crisis, the former fitness secretary shrugged it off and imitated swinging an imaginary bat out of the closet.
MacNamara wrote in his statement: “He assured me that he ‘liked responsibility’ and to prove it, he took the position of a drummer outside the Cabinet Room and said, ‘They throw them at me, I knock them down. ‘”
When asked why he included this anecdote in his statement, MacNamara said it showed “the degrees of nuclear confidence that were being deployed, which is a problem. “
The lawyer in charge of the investigation asked him: “Is it due to the fact that Mr Hancock told other people things which they later found out were not true?”
She does. “
The senior official spoke at the inquiry of the “blatant gender-based treatment” inflicted on women she saw as they competed for the most sensible government posts.
MacNamara said her warnings about what was happening in Italy, when Covid hit in early 2020, “went unheeded” and claimed this was due to an attitude that saw “women being ignored”.
He said Westminster and Whitehall were “endemic sexists”, but the scenario was made worse by the pandemic when Johnson was prime minister.
MacNamara alleged that women had to “turn off their screens” in Zoom meetings or sit in the back row for face-to-face meetings and “rarely speak. “
He said that “the dominant culture is macho and heroic” and “tainted by ego. “
When shown texts showing that Cummings had called her a f***, MacNamara said at the inquest that it was “unexpected and not unexpected to me, and I don’t know what’s worse. “
She added: “I am disappointed that the Prime Minister has criticised him for using this violent and misogynistic language. “
At Partygate, when Downing Street workers, including the Prime Minister, were found to be breaching social distancing rules, MacNamara warned that regulations had been breached.
She said: “I would struggle to get to the day when regulations were enforced in Downing Street. “
MacNamara, who has since left the civil service, said the only time the rules were followed “to the letter” was at the weekly cabinet meeting.
“And everyone was complaining about it and repeatedly seeking to replace it,” he said. “So I know how exceptional it was that ArrayArray correctly complied with the recommendation. “
Referring to the match that resulted in fines for Johnson and Sunak, MacNamara added: “When the police. . . said he was on the side of the line, I’m sure there are a lot of public servants and potential ministers who, in hindsight, I think were on that side of that line.
Helen MacNamara, “I would struggle to get to the day when regulations were enforced inside Downing Street”#CovidInquiry pic. twitter. com/xe3TK1EC76
Reportedly, the prime minister at the time watched a YouTube video in which this absurd claim was made and then asked if it would be effective in getting rid of the infection.
“A low point when he circulated a video of a guy blowing his nose with a special ‘to kill Covid’ hair dryer and asked the CSA (chief clinical advisor) and CM (chief medical officer) what they thought about it,” Cummings said. .
Case also expressed his fear that Johnson’s “Trump-Bolsonaro will go crazy” over Covid in his text messages sent around July 2020.
The former U. S. president once asked if injecting bleach could help prevent the virus, while the former Brazilian president called the illness “a bit like a cold” and was accused of pedaling in search of remedies.
Similarly, MacNamara said in the inquiry that Johnson did not perceive fundamental science as disease, saying it felt like a “little loophole” when the government kept pretending it was “following the science. “
The investigation found that in August 2020, Covid’s chief clinical adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, wrote in his diary that the Prime Minister was “obsessed with getting older people to accept their fate and letting young people keep living and running”. the economy. “
Then, in December, Vallance wrote, “[Johnson] says he ‘thinks this is all pathetic and that Covid is just the herbal way to treat the elderly. ‘
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