Hancock to hit back at Cummings’ explosive claims he should have been fired over Covid deaths
Health secretary Matt Hancock will today face MPs following damaging claims made yesterday by Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, including that he should have been fired on multiple occasions.
In a marathon seven-hour hearing yesterday, Cummings made scathing comments about the Prime Minister and Hancock, laying the blame for tens of thousands of Covid deaths squarely at their feet.
Cummings accused the health secretary of lying on multiple occasions and of causing thousands of care home deaths.
He said the Hancock should have been fired “15 or 20 times” for incompetence.
Speaking yesterday evening, Hancock said he had not seen the footage of the hearing, but added: “I’ll be giving a statement to the House of Commons tomorrow and I’ll have more to say then.”
‘Bodies pile high’
Elsewhere, Cummings said Boris Johnson was “unfit” to be PM, and that he said last February that Covid was a “scare story” and that he ignored advice from his top scientific officials to lock the country down last September.
The Prime Minister allegedly said on multiple occasions last year that the first lockdown was a mistake and that he should have been like “the mayor from Jaws who kept the beaches open”.
Cummings also agreed with media reports last month that Johnson did indeed say he would rather see “bodies pile high in their thousands” than plunge England into a third lockdown.
Speaking this morning to Radio 4’s Today programme, communities secretary Robert Jenrick said he rejected Dominic Cummings’ claim that tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily during the pandemic.
Asked directly whether he though the claim was wrong, he said: “Yes, I think it is, because you have to remember that we didn’t have all of the facts at the time that the decisions were being taken.
“Nobody, I think, could doubt for one moment that the Prime Minister was doing anything other than acting with the best of motives with the information and the advice that was available to him.”
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said there were “some facts” to back up Dominic Cummings’ claims.
Asked on Sky News whether she believed the Prime Minister’s former aide, she said it is the case that the country had the highest death toll in Europe and that there had been issues in care homes.
She said that is why a public inquiry needs to start immediately.
“There’s many people today who have lost loved ones, including myself, throughout this pandemic who will be devastated to hear that that could have been needless, and we need to know the answer to that,” she added.