Dominic Cummings, former Downing Street Chief of Staff, has revealed Boris Johnson’s private WhatsApp messages in his weblog, sensationally escalating his feud with the British prime minister to new heights.
The messages, exchanged at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in March 2020, show the British premier slamming his health secretary, Matt Hancock, as “totally f…ing hopeless” for failing to meet testing targets as Britain fought to restrict the spread of COVID-19.
At the time, the UK was in a tight race with European countries to stockpile ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE).
A screenshot of messages shows Cummings complaining that “they’ve totally f…ed up ventilators. I just hear officials admit we have been turning down ventilator offers because the price has been marked up.”
Later, after midnight and only minutes before the prime minister tested positive for COVID-19, Cummings complains Hancock conceding skepticism about whether Britain would meet its target of 10,000 tests per day, despite previously assuring it would “definitely happen.”
The prime minister responds depicting his health secretary as “totally f…ing hopeless.”
Cummings claimed productivity improved when Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stood in for Johnson, chairing meetings properly “instead of telling rambling stories and jokes.”
He said this was in contrast to Johnson who “as soon as things get a bit embarrassing does the whole ‘let’s take it offline’ stick before shouting forward to victory, doing a thumbs-up and pegging it out of the room before anybody can disagree.”
After recovering from COVID-19 by late April, Johnson was at pains to admit that the UK’s ability to procure protective medical equipment for health staff was a “disaster,” adding that he “can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.”
After losing a power struggle with Johnson’s wife Carrie Johnson, Cummings has become one of Johnson’s most outspoken public detractors.