Dominic Cummings, the former top aide of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on Wednesday reignited an ongoing row over the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic as he shared expletive-laden WhatsApp messages believed to be from his former boss in which the premier brands his health secretary “hopeless”.
Johnson’s former Chief Strategy Adviser, who left Downing Street unceremoniously last year, has previously made withering attacks on UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock and claimed the minister should have been sacked for 15-20 things, including “for lying” to people.
Following Hancock’s own evidence before a parliamentary committee to deny all the allegations, Cummings took to his blogpost to brand the Cabinet minister’s parliamentary evidence as an attempt to rewrite history.
“Number10/Hancock have repeatedly lied about the failures last year,” he writes in his blog.
In screenshots of WhatsApp messages he has shared alongside, the Prime Minister appears to call Hancock’s efforts “totally f****** hopeless” in response to a message from Cummings and in others seems to consider replacing him.
The 7,000-word blogpost dubs Hancock’s version of events as “fiction” and criticises “systemic incompetence” surrounding the UK Prime Minister.
Downing Street has refused to be drawn into the latest WhatsApp messages row, with the UK Prime Minister’s official spokesperson saying Johnson continued to have “full confidence” in Hancock.
“I am not planning to engage with every allegation put forward, the Prime Minister has worked very closely with the Health Secretary throughout and will continue to do so,” the spokesperson said.