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[scion]

Dominic Cummings: Seeing a former senior adviser excoriate his former administration was jaw-dropping

Regardless of how you feel about Mr Cummings, his seven hours of testimony was a remarkable foray into the pandemic response.

Sky News Beth Rigby
Political editor @BethRigby
Wednesday 26 May 2021 19:07, UK
https://news.sky.com/story/dominic-cummings-seeing-a-former-senior-adviser-excoriate-his-former-administration-was-jaw-dropping-12317692

Whether you admire or loathe Dominic Cummings, think he's credible or dishonorable, his testimony on Wednesday was remarkable.

For such a senior advisor to so openly and comprehensively try to demolish a sitting prime minister and his top team was jaw-dropping.

But put aside your feelings for the witness and his motives, what is undeniable is the impact of his testimony as he told the public they had been failed by this government. If you boil down the hours of evidence he offered, it comes down to this: "Tens of thousands of people who died didn't need to die."

There was no smoking gun in Mr Cummings' seven hours of evidence - although that may come later when he provides written evidence to back up some of his eye-popping claims to the committee. Instead the former right-hand man to Boris Johnson painted a picture of a deeply dysfunctional, chaotic government led by a prime minister ill-prepared to deal with a pandemic for which the public paid a deadly price.

He put on record what Number 10 and the prime minister have for months sought to stonewall as the government kicked the beginning of the public inquiry into the COVID pandemic into 2022.

The UK was woefully unprepared for the pandemic; failed to grasp the nettle in February and early March; came to the first lockdown too late; failed the public by releasing people into care homes without being tested; had a border policy that exacerbated difficulties in controlling the disease; was too late to lockdown in the autumn.

He also put on record that he did not think Mr Johnson was a fit and proper person to be prime minister and lead the country through this pandemic. Again the public may already have a low view of Mr Cummings after the Durham debacle, but for the person who was so closely aligned to Mr Johnson to not just publicly disavow him but also place the blame for thousands of deaths directly as this door was disturbing.

https://news.sky.com/story/dominic-cummings-seeing-a-former-senior-adviser-excoriate-his-former-administration-was-jaw-dropping-12317692