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Politics

16th Jun 2021

Dominic Cummings reveals “texts from Boris” calling Matt Hancock “f**king hopeless”

Charlie Herbert

He’s been tweeting again.

Dominic Cummings has leaked messages between himself and Boris Johnson, including one in which the Prime Minister calls Health Secretary Matt Hancock “totally fucking hopeless”.

Johnson’s former top adviser leaked WhatsApp messages on Twitter apparently from the UK Prime Minister, which included the expletive-laden attack on the health secretary.

In the messages, Cummings discusses the rapid rise in testing capacity in the US in March of last year and how it compared to the UK, writing: “US has gone from 2200 tests a fortnight ago to 27,000 a week ago to 100k yesterday. This is what we said we shd (sic) do.

“Instead we are still stuck on about 5-7k and MH saying today he’s ‘sceptical’ about getting to 10k by Monday which he said wd (sic) ‘definitely’ happen on Tuesday.

“This means tens of 1000s of NHS staff arent at work over next critical 3 weeks — apart from my earlier point re testing being integral to escape plan.”

Johnson then replies by simply saying: “Totally fucking hopeless.”

The messages are dated 27 March 2020, just days after the UK entered its first lockdown and Covid-19 had begun to make a huge impact.

In May, Cummings appeared before a committee of MPs to answer questions about the government’s handling of the pandemic and his involvement in the workings of the government during the Covid crisis. During his appearance, he labelled Hancock “a liar”.

The former advisor also revealed further alleged messages with the Prime Minister.

In a second screenshot that Cummings shared on his blog, Johnson allegedly claimed the procurement process surrounding personal protective equipment (PPE) had been a “disaster”.

The PM added: “On PPE it’s a disaster.

“I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.”

The message was dated 27 April 2020 and claimed No 10 needed to take a firmer grasp of the Cabinet Office.

Cummings claims in his blog that Matt Hancock and Number 10 are “seeking to rewrite history,” and writes that Matt Hancock is “creating a new version of reality in which he came up with the idea to ramp up testing before 14 March”.

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