Dominic Cummings is right about the trouble with cabinet leaks

It’s a pity that Dominic Cummings’s rude WhatsApp messages dominated the headlines following his appearance at the Covid inquiry this week. Boris Johnson’s estranged consigliere had plenty to say about the problems with Whitehall – much of which risks getting ignored because of the focus on leaked messages. One of his targets was the cabinet, which was sidelined during the pandemic because of leaks.

‘Cabinet was largely irrelevant to policy or execution in 2020,’ Cummings wrote in his inquiry evidence. ‘Its constant leaks meant it was seen by everyone in No. 10 as not a place for serious discussion.’ Cabinet became a cipher, and ‘real discussions happen(ed) elsewhere’.

Cummings has a point here: under Boris Johnson, discussions between ministers frequently ended up on Twitter and in newspapers before the government had formally announced them. It caused confusion for Brits, many of whom were stuck at home, as to what rules were, or weren’t, about to be rolled out.