BORIS Johnson will step down after the next election to “make money and have fun” according to his former aide Dominic Cummings.
The former defacto No10 chief of staff issues an astonishing attack on the PM in his 7,000 word blog.
Mr Cummings said Boris will delay an inquiry into the covid pandemic for YEARS giving him a chance to step down first.
Addressing the inquiry, he said: “It will not start for years and it is designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone — unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not ‘go on and on’.”
It comes as the maverick forme aide released a series of embarrassing messages send during the early stages of the covid crisis.
In one message the PM bluntly calls Health Secretary Matt Hancock: “Totally f***ing hopeless”.
Mr Johnson later appeared to denounce efforts to procure PPE as a “disaster” and considered sacking the Health Sec.
He said: “I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.”
In an excoriating blogpost Mr Cummings:
- Accuses Mr Hancock of “lying” and trying to rewrite history by pretending he had the “heroic” idea of ramping up testing to 100,000 a day
- Claims the PPE shortage “killed” NHS staff
- Says Mr Hancock ignored the plight of care homes because he was busy planning his testing press conference
- Accuses No10 of lying and covering up
- Doubled down calls for the Health Secretary to be sacked
- Claims the PM wants to delay the inquiry until after he’s left office
- Says PPE was delayed as officials “shipped it” rather than fly it in – to save money
- Hails Dominic Raab as better at chairing meetings than the PM
Mr Cummings dumped a trove of private messages from a contact purported to be from the PM.
One message from the PM lays the first wave’s ventilator shortage at the Health Sec’s feet.
Mr Johnson says on March 27: “It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.”
In another message, on April 27 last year, the PM called the PPE crisis “a disaster” and alluded to diverting some responsibilities to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.
“I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on,” Mr Johnson apparently added.
Another message from Mr Johnson says: “On PPE it’s a disaster. I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.”
Mr Cummings laid out questions he believed Mr Johnson should be asked about the Government’s handling of the pandemic.
He wrote: “Given his failures on testing, care homes and PPE why did you keep in post a Secretary of State you described yourself as ‘totally f**king hopeless’ and how many more people died as a result of your failure to remove him?
“Why is No10 lying, including to Parliament, about the fact that the original plan was “herd immunity by September” and had to be abandoned?
“When did Patrick Vallance brief you on NHS data showing that the death rate at the first April peak was much higher than before/after the peak and do you now agree with Hancock that every patient got the treatment they needed?
“Do you now agree with Hancock that there was no shortage of PPE or do you agree with yourself in April 2020 that PPE supply was ‘a disaster’ that required moving Hancock?
“How many people died in care homes because of what you called the ‘disaster’ on PPE and what you called Hancock’s ‘totally f***ing hopeless’ performance on testing in March?
“When will the SoS come to the House and correct his many false statements to MPs?”
Justin Madders MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, said: “This is more evidence that the Conservatives were too slow to lockdown, too slow to deliver PPE and too slow to protect our care homes.
“With this evidence that even the PM thinks Hancock is useless, why in the worst pandemic in our history has he left him in charge?
“Hancock and Johnson need to respond to these latest revelations and immediately start the public inquiry into their handling of the pandemic.”
