Dominic Cummings has told MPs, on record, he heard Boris Johnson say he would rather see “bodies pile high” than impose another lockdown on the nation.
The former No 10 aide told MPs, during a Commons committee hearing, Mr Johnson made the comment “in the PM’s study … on 31 October”.
Mr Johnson last month denied having made the remark after he was confronted by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer during prime minister’s questions.
It comes after Downing Street failed to deny another of Mr Cummings’ claims today, that Mr Johnson considered sacking Matt Hancock during the first few months of the pandemic. Quizzed by reporters, the prime minister’s official spokesman twice declined to dismiss the claim – instead suggesting Mr Johnson and the health secretary “worked closely” during the coronavirus crisis.
Mr Cummings said Mr Hancock should have been fired for “15 to 20” different things – accusing him of “criminal, disgraceful behaviour that caused serious harm”.
PM did make ‘bodies pile high’ comment, Cummings says
It’s the moment we all knew was coming. Dominic Cummings has gone on the record to say he heard Boris Johnson say in October that he would rather see “bodies pile high” than impose another lockdown on the nation.
The former aide told the Commons committee: “There’s been a few different versions of this, of these stories knocking around. There was a version of it in the Sunday Times, which was not accurate. But the version that the BBC reported was accurate. I heard that in the prime minister’s study. That was not in September though, that was immediately after he finally made the decision to do the lockdown on 31 October.”
It comes after the PM himself denied making the comments, after various Tory ministers came out to deny the accusations.
My colleague Chiara Giordano reports:
Ashworth to quiz Hancock during Urgent Questions
Two Urgent Questions are scheduled for Thursday morning, including a chance for Matt Hancock to respond to various claims made today by Dominic Cummings.
Mr Hancock, the health secretary, will be quizzed by his Labour counterpart Jonathan Ashworth after Mr Cummings claimed the former was totally unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic.
The only question now is: will he turn up? And if so, will he refrain from running a mile? (See below post.)
Hancock runs away from reporters when asked about Cummings
In case you missed it earlier. While out for a run this morning, Matt Hancock stopped and spoke to reporters to encourage newly-eligible 30-year-olds to “go out and get a vaccine”.
But when asked about Dominic Cummings’ upcoming committee hearing before MP’s, the health secretary quickly resumed his running duties and gave only a wave as a Sky News reporter shouted after him.
“Smile and run boys, smile and run” seems to be today’s official advice to ministers.
Cal Byrne reports:
Watch: Matt Hancock runs away from reporters when asked about Dominic Cummings
Before Dominic Cummings was due to give evidence to a group of MPs, reporters doorstepped Matt Hancock outside his home and asked him what his thoughts were ahead of the hearing. Rather than give a straight answer, the health secretary instead told everyone over the age of 30 to go and get their vaccine, before running off. As he ran away Hancock was again asked what he thought about Cummings, but rather than replying, simply waved to reporters in quite an odd moment.
‘Undemocratic’: Sturgeon warns Tories about blocking indyref2
Nicola Sturgeon has warned the Conservatives that denying another independence referendum would be “profoundly undemocratic” after the last election saw Holyrood filled with a “substantial majority” in support of another referendum, with SNP and Scottish Green members taking 72 seats.
“The election result has delivered a substantial majority in this parliament for an independence referendum within the current term,” she said. “There can be no justification for the UK government seeking to block that mandate. To do so would suggest that the Tories no longer consider the UK to be a voluntary union of nations.”
“And it would be profoundly undemocratic,” she added.
Meanwhile, the FM said the Scottish government intends to set out its “expectations” for what will come after Level 0 of Covid-19 restrictions.
In a speech at the Scottish Parliament on her plans for the first 100 days of government, the FM told MSPs the “most important priority” is to lead Scotland safely out of the pandemic. She said an announcement will come in the next three weeks on how Scotland will look once the levels system is scrapped.
“As we come out of the pandemic, there will be bumps in the road – as we are experiencing in Glasgow just now,” Ms Sturgeon said. “But the vaccine rollout gives us firm hope that we are on the right track. So over the next three weeks, we will also set out our expectations for the stage beyond Level 0 – as we return to a much greater degree of normality.”
Cummings denies being ‘second most powerful person in country’
Amid a wave of claims, Dominic Cummings suggested today it was “completely wrong” for people to have considered him the second most powerful person in the country.
Giving evidence to a joint select committee of MPs, he said if he had had that kind of power there would have been a “serious border policy”, masks would have been compulsory and health secretary Matt Hancock would have been fired.
“I think arguably they underestimated the influence I had between July and September 2019 and they massively exaggerated the influence I had after the election,” he said. “The whole idea I was the second most powerful person in the country and all of that was massively wrong and that I could just click my fingers and do this and do that and do the other was completely wrong.”
Bereaved families of Covid patients condemn ‘inappropriate’ evidence session
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group said Dominic Cummings’ evidence showed that “the government’s combination of grotesque chaos and uncaring flippancy is directly responsible for many of our loved ones not being with us today”.
In a series of tweets, the group said criticised the “pantomime-style spat” being played out between the former aide and Boris Johnson.
You can read the full thread here:
PM’s spokesman defends daily Covid test target called ‘stupid’ by Cummings
Downing Street has defended the 100,000 daily target for coronavirus tests blasted as “stupid” by Dominic Cummings.
Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “This was an ambitious goal during a national crisis which had a galvanising effect on massively scaling up our testing capacity.”
Asked about the former adviser saying it was left too long to set up a functioning tracing system, the spokesman said: “I would refute that, our testing capacity was clear at the start of this pandemic. Like other countries we needed to massively scale up the capacity we had and we did that successfully.”
No 10 fails to deny PM considered firing Matt Hancock
Downing Street has failed to deny Dominic Cummings’ claim that Boris Johnson considered sacking Matt Hancock during the height of the first wave of the pandemic.
The prime minister’s official spokesman twice declined to dismiss the claim, instead suggesting the prime minister and health secretary “worked closely” during the coronavirus crisis.
Our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports:
PM ‘never wanted border policy’ to prevent Covid, Cummings claims
Boris Johnson never wanted tough border controls to prevent cases of coronavirus being brought in from overseas, Dominic Cummings has claimed.
He said his former boss wanted to be like the mayor from the film Jaws, who kept the beaches open to protect the local economy despite the threat posed by a killer shark.
Mr Cummings said the policy was “madness” because while there were restrictions imposed domestically from the end of March 2020, there were travellers coming in from infected areas.
“Fundamentally, there was no proper border policy because the prime minister never wanted a proper border policy,” he told MPs. “Repeatedly in meeting after meeting I and others said all we have to do is download the Singapore or Taiwan documents in English and impose them here.
He continued: “We’re imposing all of these restrictions on people domestically but people can see that everyone is coming in from infected areas, it’s madness, it’s undermining the whole message that we should take it seriously.
“At that point he was back to, ‘lockdown was all a terrible mistake, I should’ve been the mayor of Jaws, we should never have done lockdown one, the travel industry will all be destroyed if we bring in a serious border policy’.
Mr Cummings said the border policy argument was “never won”.
“We never won the argument,” he told MPs. “As of today, look at the whole thing about variants. We still don’t have a proper border policy in my opinion.”
‘The whole thing was a complete disaster’
After the story broke about his trip to Durham, Dominic Cummings said it was a “chaotic” situation in No10.
He said Boris Johnson wanted him to offer an explanation but he refused to explain the security reasons otherwise he would “have everyone mobbed back outside my house”.
What he said at his press conference in the Rose Garden was “true”, he said, but a “crucial part” of the story was left out.
“The whole thing was a complete disaster”, he added.
