Cummings: Boris said Hancock has been ‘hopeless’

Since his eight hour long testimony to a joint select committee last month Dominic Cummings has been unusually quiet. The Vote Leave maestro has declined interview requests after levelling a litany of accusations at Boris Johnson and his government, leaving Matt Hancock and others to defend their record in various studios and parliamentary appearances.

Now though he has returned to the fray in a 7,250 word Substack post to his £100 a year subscribers. Steerpike is still working his way manfully through reams of Cummings prose but once again Matt Hancock does not come out well. Taking aim at the ‘PM’s favoured stooges’ Cummings writes that the ‘PM/Hancock are spinning distorted versions of my messages from internal WhatsApp groups’ and has decided to now fight fire with fire.

Screenshots posted by the former chief special adviser show Boris Johnson describing his health secretary as ‘hopeless’ in a message of 27 March 2020. After Cummings told Johnson that health department officials had been turned down ventilator offers because the price had been marked up, Johnson replied ‘It’s Hancock.