For a man who professes to despise the media, Dominic Cummings is certainly adept at courting it. The former No 10 chief special adviser has given his first, long-awaited interview since storming out of Downing Street some eight months ago. In an hour long grilling with Laura Kuenssberg which will air tonight, Cummings will set out his case against the Prime Minister’s handling of the Covid pandemic.
Several clips have already been aired by the BBC with most attention thus far focusing on the claim that Johnson was reluctant to tighten Covid restrictions as cases rose last autumn because he thought people dying from it were ‘essentially all over 80.’ However Steerpike’s eye was caught by another startling claim – namely that Cummings had to stop Boris Johnson on March 18 last year from going to see the Queen in person at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
At this point staff in Number 10 were already falling ill and the Prime Minister had already instructed the public to avoid all unnecessary contact, especially with the elderly.
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