'IT'S A DISASTER'
Boris was warned ‘we’re absolutely f***ed’ and lockdown shambles was like movie ‘Independence Day’, blasts Cummings
BORIS Johnson was warned by top civil servants "we're absolutely f***ed" and scenes were like the Independence Day film, Dominic Cummings claimed today in a jaw-dropping committee clash.
In bombshell evidence, the PM's former top aide accused Boris of dismissing Covid as a "scare story" and "just swine flu" and admitted he and the PM had "failed" Britain by not locking down weeks before.
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Mr Cummings said it was "crackers" Boris ended up as PM as he wasn't fit for the job - saying he nearly held a press conference to quit and accuse him of "killing hundreds of thousands of people".
In utterly explosive and damning claims, he said there wasn't even an NHS plan, let alone one to "bury the bodies".
He said he should have been "hitting the panic button" far earlier than he was, and the nation should have locked down in the first week of March at the very earliest.
"Had I acted earlier, many more people may be alive," he added.
In a scathing assessment to MPs today, he claimed Helen McNamara, the deputy cabinet secretary, came to the PM’s study where Mr Cummings was looking at his lockdown plans in mid-March.
She reportedly told him: “I’ve been told for years there is a plan; there is no plan; we are in huge trouble.
"I think we are absolutely f**ked. I think this country is heading for a disaster, we are going to kill thousands of people."
I think this country is heading for a disaster, we are going to kill thousands of people
Helen McNamara - according to Dominic Cummings
The top aide said in an explosive evidence session today:
- "Tens of thousands of people died, who didn't need to."
- The PM and other top officials were on holiday in February and missed key pandemic prep meetings
- The PM said Covid was just a "scare story" in February and thought it was "just the new swine flu"
- Cummings claimed Boris was going to get Chris Whitty to inject him live on telly with Covid to show it was "nothing to be scared of"
- No10 was distracted in the week of March 12 as Donald Trump wanted the UK to help with a bombing campaign - and Carrie wanted the press office to deal with a story about their dog, Dilyn
- Matt Hancock should have been fired several times for "lying" to officials and obsessing over his "stupid" testing target
- And the PM nearly fired Hancock last April - but decided not to
- He sensationally claimed Mr Hancock had reassured them that people were being tested in hospitals before being sent back into care homes but "that hadn't happened"
- The PM was repeatedly warned not to "pick a fight" with Rashford but was forced to back down twice over school meals
- Said he should have resigned over the Barnard Castle fiasco
- He claimed Boris did day he'd rather "let the bodies pile high" than see a third lockdown
Mr Cummings claimed the PM was far too slow to lock down and Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, was suggesting Boris go on telly as late as March 13 to urge the public to have 'chicken pox parties' to spread Covid and build up immunity.
The top aide, who left Government last year in a flurry of fury and briefings, said March last year was like an "out of control movie".
And he told how the PM was so reluctant to lock the country down last Autumn, saying: "His basic argument was... 'lockdown was a terrible mistake, I should have been the mayor of Jaws, we should never have done lockdown one, the travel industry will be destroyed'."
'INDEPENDENCE DAY'
He said: "Imagine this is like a scene from Independence Day... your whole plan is broken and you need a new plan - that is what the scene was like."
The PM made "some very bad mis-judgements and got some very serious things wrong", he blasted.
When the public needed us most, the government failed
Dominic Cummings
The trademark scruffy PM's former right-hand man swept into Parliament with an open-neck shirt, jeans and a black baseball cap this morning.
The aide, who left Government last year after falling out with Boris and other members of the top team, started his box-office grilling by saying sorry to the public for failing them.
He apologised to families for not doing enough to save lives, adding: "When the public needed us most, the government failed."
Cummings told how Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill had reportedly said to the PM how he could go live on telly to tell people to have "chicken pox parties" to spread the virus - in order to make more people immune.
GOV DISTRACTED
No10 was not on a war footing fast enough and "lots of key people were skiing in the middle of February", he raged.
And ministers didn't realise the huge holes in their planning until it was too late, he claimed, and called the Cabinet office "terrifyingly s**t".
He even claimed key meetings on Covid were derailed as No10 had to deal with Donald Trump's demands to bomb Iraq - and a story about Carrie Symonds' dog - on the same day.
HANCOCK BLASTED
And Matt Hancock should have been fired "about 20 times" for "lying to everybody on multiple occasions" - and he told the PM to get rid of him.
There was no plan for furlough or for shielding until the very last minute, he said, but dodged questions on whether ministers should face corporate manslaughter charges.
He raged: "There's no doubt at all that many senior people performed far, far disastrously below the standards which the country has a right to expect.
"I think that the Secretary of State for Health is certainly one of those people.
"Hancock told us in the cabinet that people were going to be tested before they went back to care homes. What the hell happened?"
He even claimed the PM wanted to fire him last April - something No10 did not deny this afternoon.
But Downing Street said the PM had full confidence in the Health Secretary.
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SORRY FOR BARNARD CASTLE
Finally Mr Cummings said he was sorry for going to Durham when he had Covid with his wife and young child.
And he said he wished he'd never gone - but said it was for security reasons and his wife was worried to leave him alone.
"That whole episode was a major disaster for the government and Covid policy," he said.
"Arguably I should have resigned in March or May, and I should definitely have resigned in September..."
Speaking for the first time about how sick he was, he said even for weeks afterwards he could barely walk 50metres.
He said his trip to Barnard Castle to "test his eyesight" was true but called the whole trip a "terrible, terrible, terrible mistake that I am extremely sorry about".
RASH DECISION
The PM's former director of Comms told the PM not to pick a fight with footballer Marcus Rashford - but was ignored - Mr Cummings said.
Instead the PM had to back down and give in after pressure from the campaigner over free school meals.
HERD IMMUNITY 'WAS THE PLAN'
Mr Cummings insisted ministers were being dishonest when they said herd immunity and getting as many people immune as possible wasn't the Government's agenda.
He said: "Herd immunity was regarded as an unavoidable fact.
"That was the official plan. You can see it in the COBRA documents I've brought along.
"Hancock himself, and the chief scientist, and the chief medical officer, were all briefing senior journalists during the week of the ninth, saying, this is what the official plan is.
"I am completely baffled why No10 is trying to deny that."
Mr Cummings said the Government's original plan was for limited intervention, with the hope of achieving herd immunity.
But that was abandoned when it became clear the scale of the death toll that would result, around mid-March.
Others called the first plan as "mad" and questioned whether it would really work.
CUMMINGS PUSHES FOR LOCKDOWN
Mr Cummings read out texts he reportedly sent to the PM and key scientists on March 11 and 12, before the 13 'Plan B' came along, saying they needed to take action and start social distancing now - breaking with SAGE advisers.
He claimed that ministers and officials were delaying making official policy and telling Brits to 'stay at home' because "there hasn't been the planning and the preparation" in place.
"By the 11th it had already gone terribly wrong," he added.
The PM and other ministers thought the public wouldn't accept a lockdown and restrictions on every part of our lives, he said.
"Those two assumptions were completely central to to the Official Plan," he said. "And were both obviously completely wrong."
The PM still did not tell the nation to stay at home until March 23, days later.
On March 12 at 7.48am, Mr Cummings sent texts saying: "The Cabinet office is terrifyingly s**t, no plan, totally behind the pace... we must announce today, if you feel ill with a cold or flu, stay at home."
Around then it was estimated that 500,000 deaths could occur.
And the NHS would be smashed apart, he stressed.
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PANDEMIC PLANNING
Mr Cummings this morning published his own evidence this morning, hours before the bombshell appearance.
He tweeted a photo purportedly showing a whiteboard in the PM's study showing the "first sketch of Plan B".
The "first sketch" was said to have been drawn up in Mr Johnson's study on the evening of Friday March 13 and shown to the PM the following day.
Plan A "breaks" the NHS and results in a daily death toll of more than 4,000, Mr Cummings said.
Plan B was for "lockdown, suppress, crash programs" - the accelerated drive to boost tests, treatments and develop vaccines in order to escape both the first and second waves, he said.
However, messages that emerged last night reportedly show the ex-No10 aide ordered Cabinet Ministers to deny herd immunity was ever Government policy.
Mr Cummings has furiously accused Downing Street of "appalling ethics" for "lying" that herd immunity was never the Government's Covid strategy.
Boris Johnson's allies believe newly-surfaced WhatsApps, reported by the Politico website, will blow a hole in Mr Cummings' explosive accusation.
They show the all-powerful maverick adviser then demanded ministers deny herd immunity was the No10 approach.
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A source told Politico: "A year ago he was ordering ministers to deny herd immunity was government policy, now he’s calling them liars for sticking to the lines he gave them."
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Towards the end of today's committee session Mr Cummings suggested he was stepping back from frontline politics for good.
Asked if he was eyeing a return, potentially in a Rishi Sunak administration, he said: "I think everyone from my wife to everybody in Westminster and Whitehall will agree that the less heard from me in the future the better."
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