The government is not challenging Dominic Cummings’s evidence in any kind of detailed way — despite the many highly damaging charges against the Prime Minister, the Health Secretary, and the entire Whitehall system.
On my show last night, the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick repudiated nothing of substance that Cummings had alleged, including the most damaging assertion of all, that the PM’s refusal to lock down in September had led to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths.
The calculation appears to be that by the time Johnson’s public inquiry into the crisis starts next spring, we’ll have moved on and have forgotten and forgiven in our gratitude for the vaccines.
The most anxious person in cabinet today is probably Matt Hancock
It is classic Johnson Micawberism. But the charge, that the PM made a very costly mistake in not pre-emptively restricting our liberties last autumn, won’t go away — because Cummings is supported by scientists who could never be painted as his friends and allies, such as John Edmunds, the distinguished epidemiologist who underwrote this part of his testimony on Peston last night.
And equally there will be no let-up in pressure from bereaved families and those suffering debilitating long Covid consequences for a forensic investigation of whether they could have been better protected.
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