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Screen grab from UK Covid Inquiry as former British health secretary Matt Hancock gives evidence PA

Dominic Cummings ‘malign actor’ who created culture of fear, Matt Hancock tells UK Covid inquiry

The former British health secretary Matt Hancock painted Boris Johnson’s ex-chief adviser as a ‘malign actor’ who undermined the UK’s pandemic response.

FORMER BRITISH HEALTH secretary Matt Hancock has accused Dominic Cummings of creating a “culture of fear” in the UK Government that undermined the pandemic response.

The former minister defended his record as health secretary and painted Boris Johnson’s ex-chief adviser as a “malign actor” who subjected Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) staff to abuse as they grappled with the emergence of Covid-19.

Cummings sought to grab power from the then-prime minister while shutting out ministers from key meetings, Hancock claimed.

Hancock played a key role in the response to the pandemic but his performance has been repeatedly criticised by a number of other witnesses including Cummings, who has branded him a “proven liar”.

Hitting back as he gave evidence today to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, the former health secretary said Cummings had attempted to exert influence over decision-making in a way that was “inappropriate in a democracy”.

“As the Cobra system was running in February, the prime minister’s chief adviser decided that he didn’t like the Cobra system – that’s on the record – and he decided instead to take all of the major daily decisions into his office and he invited a subset of the people who needed to be there to these meetings,” Hancock said.

“He didn’t invite any ministers. He didn’t regard ministers as a valuable contribution to any decision-making as far as I could see in the crisis or, indeed, any other time.”

He added: “There is a proper Government emergency response system and it was actively circumvented and in one of these early meetings the chief adviser said decisions don’t need to go to the prime minister.

“Now that is inappropriate in a democracy. I saw it simply as essentially a power-grab but it definitely got in the way of organising the response for the period it was in operation.”

covid-19-pandemic-inquiry Dominic Cummings repeatedly urged the then prime minister Boris Johnson to sack Hancock PA PA

Hancock rejected claims he lied to colleagues about having a plan for the outbreak, describing these as “false allegations”.

Instead he pointed the finger at Cummings for, he suggested, presiding over an atmosphere in which blame was assigned rather than allowing people to “spend all of their effort solving the problems”.

“It was deeply, deeply frustrating… we’ve discussed the structural problem which was essentially an adviser trying to take executive authority away from the prime minister for a period until the cabinet secretary stopped it and put in place the MIG (Ministerial Implementation Group) process,” Hancock said.

“But there was also effectively a cultural problem which is that there was a culture of fear inculcated by the behaviour of this particular individual.”

Referring to the resignation of former chancellor Sajid Javid, Hancock added: “He did in the middle of this, in the middle of February, effectively cause the resignation of the chancellor of the exchequer.”

He was interrupted by lead counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith KC before saying “it’s important”, to which Mr Keith responded: “Please forgive me, the determination of what’s important is really for the questioner.”

Critics have questioned the former health secretary’s record on key issues like rules for nursing homes and Covid testing for asymptomatic cases.

Also known for his appearance last year on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, Hancock’s political career was torpedoed after footage emerged in 2021 of his embrace with aide Gina Coladangelo which broke social distancing guidelines.

But in today’s evidence he insisted that he had taken “precautionary” measures, in some cases overriding the scientific advice he had been given, and described himself as in the “pro-let’s worry about asymptomatic transmission camp”.

Giving an example, Hancock said he overruled guidance from Public Health England (PHE) during the early pandemic was that there was not a need to quarantine people being brought back from Wuhan in China.

While Hancock accepted the DHSC had not got everything right, he said his department had “effectively” tried to “raise the alarm” to wider Government as early as January, but its concerns were not taken as seriously as they should have been.

“We were on occasions blocked,” he told the inquiry.

He and DHSC faced “deep unpleasantness” from the centre of Government during the early months of the pandemic while the rest of Whitehall was slow to react, Hancock said.

“A healthy culture involves scepticism, an unhealthy culture involves false allegations and extremely unpleasant language,” he added.

Elsewhere, Hancock insisted he had warned the then-PM to lock down as early as 13 March 2020, but conceded there was no entry in his published diaries to back up that claim.

Rebuking Hancock’s account in a broadside on X, formerly Twitter, Cummings said he was “outright lying” by claiming to have privately Johnson to impose the measure and “talking rubbish” to the inquiry.

Allies of the ex-minister responded by saying: “Cummings is not a reliable witness and this tweet is wrong.”

The former aide was among a number of senior figures who questioned Hancock’s approach in their evidence, with the inquiry hearing that the country’s most senior civil servant at the time, Mark Sedwill, wanted the minister sacked.

In one WhatsApp exchange with the permanent secretary at Number 10 Simon Case – who is the current Cabinet Secretary – Sedwill joked it was necessary to remove Hancock to “save lives and protect the NHS”.

WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry also revealed that Cummings repeatedly pushed Johnson to fire the former minister.

At one stage, Cummings claimed Hancock had “lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it”.

Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary, also claimed in her evidence that Mr Hancock displayed “nuclear levels” of overconfidence – assertions that he rejected on Thursday.

“There was a huge amount of uncertainty and a huge amount of worry and I basically felt it was my professional duty to try to keep going, to try to keep driving forward,” Hancock said.

Christopher Wormald, a senior civil servant in the Department of Health, suggested it was a “very small number of people” claiming that the minister was “actually telling untruths”.

But he added that there were a lot who thought he was “overoptimistic” and “overpromised” on what could be delivered.

Meanwhile, the inquiry has confirmed Johnson will face two days of questioning over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic when he gives evidence next week.

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    Mute Stephen Duggan
    Favourite Stephen Duggan
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    May 8th 2014, 7:05 AM

    Let’s be totally frank and honest,the man is a grade A arrogant and self serving pr!ck,is there anyone apart from himself who’s honestly surprised he’s gone ? The question is if there were no elections on the horizon would Edna have done what he done ? FG/Lab right now would throw the baby out with the bath water just to survive being obliterated at the upcoming elections . The trouble is and truth is it’s way too little too late.

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    Mute Declan Pollard
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    May 8th 2014, 7:25 AM

    Shatter is moaning that he was never interviewed by the senior council. Now he knows what the whistle blowers felt when they weren’t interviewed about their claims of Garda malpractice. It’s always the same mantra when a politician resigns: they left for the good of the party and the country. Bertie said the same.

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    Mute Harry Price
    Favourite Harry Price
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    May 8th 2014, 2:16 PM

    The entire politically appointed gang both in the courts with its agents and the gardai top brass have failed justice . Its time that truth and common law had a real place in law to stop the gang cartel from being a judge unto self . independant in job and above right over wrong is but corrupt

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    Mute Joe Traynor
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    May 8th 2014, 7:14 AM

    Honourable thing my a^se,
    He could not take being scolded publicly for something that he couldn’t deny .

    37
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    Mute TOP CAT
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    May 8th 2014, 7:21 AM

    Alan Shatter’s tank was empty,
    He had no more bulls**t to give.He was a walking talking STD.
    A
    Special TD.
    Who never stopped giving……

    31
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    Mute Gus Sheridan
    Favourite Gus Sheridan
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    May 8th 2014, 8:35 AM

    The best thing he did was to resign, arrogant, self-important price.Practically abolished the Gardai as an effective force.Stopped recruitment so there will be a huge skills gap in years to come.Made rural dwellers feel unsafe in their own homes, a TOTAL disaster and it will take years for the system to recover because of this gobsh1te, Good riddance!

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    Mute Powerabbey
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    May 8th 2014, 7:11 AM

    Most of the opposition will be delighted to see this reforming ministers resignation. He is the first minister in many many years to take on the big issues. As usual in Ireland we look at the small problems to the detriment of the total portfolio.

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    Mute James O Donoghue
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    May 8th 2014, 8:09 AM

    Disagree. He destroyed the police, undermined alot of legal professionals.

    The only positive was his reforming of the immergration system

    16
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    Mute Peter Redmond
    Favourite Peter Redmond
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    May 8th 2014, 8:34 AM

    Arrogant, out of touch and ignorant! Good riddance Mr Shatter, all we want is transparent politicians that are doing there best for the citizens and not there own egos

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    Mute phunkyboy
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    May 8th 2014, 9:35 AM

    He’d become a joke. A Justice minister who breaks the law only could happen in Ireland.

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    Mute Mike Clinton
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    May 8th 2014, 8:07 AM

    Has shatter actually left the government/party or just stepped down from the ministerial position.

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    Mute Niall Mullins
    Favourite Niall Mullins
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    May 8th 2014, 8:48 AM

    Only the ministerial position. Wouldn’t qualify for the pension if he left government completely. All plans are falling into place nicely for them. No more talk about the water tax fiasco now and the public are happy that he’s gone. They try to make out that nobody knew and all parties were shocked but if you check the replay of inda’s announcement you’ll see that there was no reaction from any of them. Just like it was a normal run of business. This was planned well in advance and timed to give them cover in the run up to the election. One can only hope the public don’t fall for it.

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    Mute Mike Clinton
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    May 8th 2014, 9:29 AM

    I was wondering about that Niall, from the onset it looks like a very well orchestrated ballet .

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    Mute Gus Sheridan
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    May 8th 2014, 8:36 AM

    Not price………. Read. Pr1ck !

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    Mute Betty Lewis
    Favourite Betty Lewis
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    May 8th 2014, 7:25 AM

    The only Minister that did right and rectified issues relating to foreigners in Ireland. God bless Ireland. Shatter you will be missed.

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    Mute Rory J Leonard
    Favourite Rory J Leonard
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    May 8th 2014, 9:05 AM

    It now appears that the upper echelons of Irish politics is no place for a man in a hurry!

    Shatter probably has little time for lots of the hail-fellow-well-met BS that goes with politics, and just wanted to get on with his reforms.

    It says a lot about the quality of line management and systems within DOJ if files on serious matters, alluded to in press comments from Guerin Report, we’re not attended to in a proper and timely manner. I doubt if Shatter sat on any file intentionally, without actioning.

    In any event, the buck still stops with the Minister.

    4
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