Matt Hancock detailed his astonishing spat with Dominic Cummings, claiming the former No. 10 adviser of ‘utter foolishness’ in the early days of the epidemic.
Going forward with a series of scathing claims, the former health secretary portrays Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff as a monster who employed petty methods to thwart the Covid initiative.
Mr. Hancock said in his pandemic diaries, which are being serialized today on Mail+ and tomorrow in the Daily Mail, that he was obliged to battle hostile briefings and office power plays even as the virus threatened to overwhelm the NHS.
According to him, Mr. Cummings showed “total disrespect for elected leaders, including the Prime Minister,” and it was “amazing that Boris lends so much authority to Cummings.”
Matt Hancock detailed his astonishing spat with Dominic Cummings, claiming the former No. 10 adviser of ‘utter foolishness’ in the early days of the epidemic.
Mr. Hancock’s hatred for his former colleague permeates his journals until Mr. Cummings’s shocking exit from No. 10 in November 2020.
Mr. Cummings addressed Mr. Hancock in his ‘Domshells’ – his alarming accusations about how the epidemic was handled in Downing Street – stating that the former health secretary’should have been dismissed for at least 15 to 20 things’ for his ‘criminal, despicable behavior’
When Mr. Cummings joined No. 10 in 2019, he was best known for orchestrating the Leave campaign during the 2016 EU referendum and coining the slogan “Take Back Control.”
But after Mr. Johnson’s election, he became the most prominent and infamous advisor since the Blair administration.
Mr. Hancock has re-examined Mr. Cummings’ position in the early days of the epidemic, arguing that his power-hungry and dictatorial behavior impeded the government’s response.
He asserted that Mr. Cummings saw Covid as a “distraction” from more pressing issues, such as the United Kingdom’s official divorce from the European Union – even as the Chinese city of Wuhan was being shut down in January 2020.
Mr. Hancock writes that the No. 10 chief of staff “finally focused his attention to coronavirus” on February 24, almost a month before the first UK shutdown.
In what the former minister termed a “act of complete folly,” he scheduled a Zoom call at the same time as the health secretary’s daily meeting, so double-booking everyone.
Mr. Hancock continues, “He has made it quite obvious that he wants this meeting to be the “decision-making meeting.” He has a total lack of respect for elected officials, including the Prime Minister.
Mr. Hancock said that he also pursued a “long-standing agenda to remove NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens,” despite the fact that “a pandemic is imminent.”
Lee Cain, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson, Jack Doyle, Chris Whitty, and Matt Hancock are seen, from left to right.
Mr. Cummings has also been open in his criticism of Mr. Hancock, blaming him for the transfer of Covid-positive patients from hospitals to residential care facilities, which resulted in thousands of fatalities.
In a hearing before a select committee last year, Mr. Cummings stated that tens of thousands of people perished needlessly due to the errors of leaders and authorities.
He informed MPs that Mr. Hancock had misled in meetings and used senior scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance and top medical adviser Chris Whitty as a “shield” for government failures at televised press conferences.
Mr. Cummings garnered widespread condemnation after he violated lockdown regulations by traveling from London to County Durham with his wife and child while infected with Covid.
He was compelled to hold a humiliating news conference in the Downing Street Rose Garden, where he attempted in vain to deflect the media’s harsh questions.
He then claimed to have driven his family 30 kilometers to Barnard Castle to test his vision.
»Inside the feud between Matt Hancock and Dominic Cummings«