I
t is set to be a big day in Westminster on Wednesday (26 May), as Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, gives evidence to a joint select committee of MPs about his former boss’s handling of coronavirus.
His session is scheduled to be three hours long, from 9.30am until 12.30, which means it will overlap with Prime Minister’s Questions, starting at noon. That means that Labour leader Keir Starmer will have little time to assess the significance of Mr Cummings’s testimony and to ask Boris Johnson about it.
Mr Cummings fascinates the media, partly because of his unconventional character, as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the TV documentary about the Brexit campaign; partly because he was so close to the centre of power in the government; and partly because of the human drama of his falling out with the prime minister.
Most people assume he is consumed by the desire for revenge, and that he will try to present an indictment of Mr Johnson’s handling of the pandemic crisis – complete with first-person accounts from “the room where it happened” and confidential documents. Mr Cummings claims to have “the only copy of a crucial historical document from Covid decision-making” and is expected to find a way to share it with the committee despite the rusty restrictions of the Official Secrets Act.
The Labour leader will then be in a race against time to try to work out how to use Mr Cummings’s evidence against their common opponent, when Sir Keir and Mr Johnson face each other across the despatch boxes. I’ll be writing about all this on the day, and then I’ll be here to answer your questions, live at 4pm, on Wednesday 26 May.
All you have to do is register to submit your question in the comments below. If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments box to leave your question. Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they will be hidden until I join the conversation to answer them. Then join us live on this page at 4pm as I tackle as many questions as I can.
