UK Prime Minister Boris Johnsons’ former aide Dominic Cummings has stepped up his criticism of the government by leaking private WhatsApp messages in which his former boss apparently calls the Health Secretary “totally f—ing hopeless”.
Mr Cummings, a key architect of the Brexit campaign and at one stage said to have been one of the most powerful men in the country as the PM’s top advisor, has been hammering his former boss, and particularly Health Secretary Matt Hancock, since quitting in November last year after a power struggle.
In a 7000-word blog post, he accused the Prime Minister’s office lying “repeatedly” as they tried to “rewrite history” around the UK’s initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
To back up his claims, the former adviser published screenshots apparently from several private WhatsApp groups and with Mr Johnson.
In one message, Mr Cummings complains that in the space of a fortnight the US ramped up testing from 2200 a day to 100,000 while Mr Hancock was sceptical about achieving even 10,000.
“Totally f—ing hopeless,” Mr Johnson replied, just after midnight on March 27, according to the screenshot.
Later that morning, Mr Cummings said officials had admitted turning down ventilators over increased prices.
“It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless,” Mr Johnson apparently replied. A month later he apparently considered “taking Hancock off and putting (current Cabinet Office Minister Michael) Gove on”.
While being driven past reporters on Wednesday, Mr Hancock was asked whether he was “hopeless”.
“I don’t think so,” he replied.
In response to the leaked messages, Downing Street reportedly said the PM had full confidence in the Health Secretary but did not deny he had referred to him as “hopeless”.
The BBC quoted Mr Johnson’s official spokesman saying the PM “worked very closely” with Mr Hancock and “will continue to do so”.
Mr Cummings has repeatedly criticised Mr Hancock, including in extraordinary testimony to a government committee last month in which he accused the Health Secretary of lying and said he “should have been fired for at least 15, 20 things”.
The committee asked Mr Cummings to send evidence to back up his claims but he had not done so by the time Mr Hancock fronted the same inquiry two weeks later.
The Health Secretary described the ommission as “telling” and said the government had operated better since Mr Cummings left.
Mr Hancock said “the unsubstantiated allegations around honesty are not true.”
Mr Cummings justified his decision to leak the messages by accusing Number 10 Downing Street and Mr Hancock of “openly lying” and saying he had been asked by the committee to provide evidence, which the public should see as well.
He said he would only publish messages that “further the question of ‘what went wrong and how do we learn’,” not “just to embarrass the PM or others”.
