We are now closing the blog. Here is a summary of today’s events.
The UK Covid inquiry heard from the former prime minister’s top aide Dominic Cummings, and Lee Cain, the former Downing Street director of communications. We were told that:
Boris Johnson suggested “Covid is nature’s way of dealing with old people”, according to Sir Patrick Vallance.
Dominic Cummings said vulnerable people were “appallingly neglected”.
Cummings frequently called for the sacking of Matt Hancock and other cabinet ministers.
Cummings used misogynistic language to denigrate the deputy cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara. But he claimed foul-mouthed messages about his colleague were not misogynistic, saying he was “much ruder about men”.
Johnson urged Cummings to end an “orgy of narcissism”.
Cummings was unrepentant about his trip to Durham at the height of lockdown.
Cummings said Johnson’s relationship with the press was “extremely damaging” to the government’s Covid response.
Cummings defended helping to make Johnson PM even though he thought he was unfit to handle the pandemic.
Cummings claimed he told Johnson in early February containing Covid was impossible - but accepted there’s no written record of this.
Cummings said the UK could have avoided lockdown if massive test and trace capacity had been in place by March 2020.
Cain tried to resist Sunak’s “eat out to help out” scheme in the summer of 2020.
Cain said it was a “huge blunder” to ignore Marcus Rashford’s campaign on free school meals.
Susie Flintham, a spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said there was “nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic”.
Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said she has “nothing to hide” as 14,000 messages to be handed over to the UK Covid inquiry.
Rail ticket office closures in England have been scrapped in a government U-turn
Gillian Keegan says she hopes much-delayed trans guidance for schools in England to be out before Christmas.
English councils seek £100m to avert collapse of homelessness services.
Rishi Sunak spoke with the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas telling him the UK will continue to support diplomatic action to protect Palestinian civilians.
Rishi Sunak also spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu about the importance of minimising civilian casualties.
Human rights campaign group Amnesty International was among several organisations that were critical of Keir Starmer’s stance on the conflict in Gaza, following a speech the Labour leader gave today.
Updated
‘Nastiness, arrogance and misogyny’ of UK government exposed at Covid inquiry
A toxic culture of government incompetence, backstabbing and misogyny was laid bare at the Covid public inquiry on Tuesday with messages revealing Boris Johnson’s dismissive attitude to millions of old people at risk from the virus.
The former prime minister’s top aide Dominic Cummings was accused of “aggressive, foul-mouthed and misogynistic” abuse after messages showed he tried to sack top civil servant Helen MacNamara saying No 10 was “dodging stilettos from that cunt”.
Johnson’s chaotic indecisiveness delayed lockdown measures, the inquiry heard, while he had told senior advisers the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and he was “no longer buying” the fact the NHS was overwhelmed during the pandemic.
Bereaved relatives reacted to the fresh evidence with horror after a bruising session of the Covid inquiry, with Cummings and Lee Cain, the former No 10 director of communications, questioning Johnson’s suitability for leading the country during the pandemic.
Susie Flintham, a spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said: “The nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic is core to the awful decision making that led to thousands of unnecessary deaths and tore families like mine apart. When you see that these figures had such a shocking disregard for each other, you can only imagine the disregard they had for families like mine.”
Read the full report here.
Updated
Sunak tells president Abbas the UK will continue to support diplomatic action to protect Palestinian civilians
Rishi Sunak spoke to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, earlier today, PA News reports.
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
The leaders discussed the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, and the prime minister once again expressed his deep condolences for the tragic loss of civilian life.
The prime minister set out the intensive diplomatic and practical efforts the United Kingdom is making to rapidly increase the delivery of life-saving aid to Gaza, following the announcement that the UK will double aid funding for Palestinian civilians.
President Abbas thanked the prime minister for his active engagement in the region.
President Abbas also updated on the security situation in the West Bank.
The prime minister emphasised the importance of making progress on the peace process to ensure that Palestinian civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank can live in security and prosperity.
He said the UK would continue to support diplomatic action to protect Palestinian civilians, prevent wider escalation and secure a peaceful and lasting resolution to the crisis.
Updated
More reaction is coming to us on the speech Keir Starmer gave earlier today.
A spokesperson for Caabu (Council for Arab-British Understanding) said it was “disappointing” that Starmer and the UK government have “continued to rebuff this vital humanitarian call”.
The full statement is here:
Keir Starmer in his speech today at Chatham House once again referred to meeting he had with agencies involved with Gaza. Caabu was one of the agencies present at that meeting.
Every single agency referenced the urgent need for a ceasefire. It was the united position of all the organisations, as it is also of Unicef, UNRWA, and the UN secretary general that a ceasefire is essential to saving lives and allowing aid to flow.
It is deeply disappointing that Keir Starmer, along with the UK government, has continued to rebuff this vital humanitarian call.
Aid cannot be delivered under fire, and the catastrophic conditions facing 2.3 million Palestinian civilians who are on the brink of dying of thirst, hunger and disease if not the bombs, cannot be addressed merely by a pause.
Updated
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK criticise 'nastiness' at heart of government pandemic decision making
Susie Flintham, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK has criticised the “nastiness” at the heart of the government’s “awful” pandemic decision making.
She said:
The nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic is core to the awful decision making that led to thousands of unnecessary deaths and tore families like mine apart.
When you see that these figures had such a shocking disregard for each other, you can only imagine the disregard they had for families like mine.
After today's Covid inquiry hearings, Susie Flintham, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK said: “The nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic is core to the awful decision making that led to thousands of unnecessary…
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) October 31, 2023
Sturgeon says she has 'nothing to hide' as 14,000 messages to be handed over to UK Covid inquiry
Here’s more from former first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
She told journalists in Holyrood she has “nothing to hide” under questioning about her WhatsApps, as 14,000 messages are set to be disclosed to the UK Covid-19 inquiry.
Press reports over the weekend suggested Sturgeon’s messages from the time of the pandemic had been deleted and the now-backbench MSP said she acted in line with Scottish government policy on informal messaging.
The policy, which was published on Wednesday, said “business conversations” through informal messaging channels should be deleted “at least monthly” after any decisions had been noted in the government’s record management system.
Sturgeon said:
I did not manage the Covid response by WhatsApp.
She told reporters at Holyrood, she was not a member of any WhatsApp groups and she took decisions on the response at the Scottish government headquarters at St Andrews House in Edinburgh.
She said:
I have nothing to hide – I am committed to full transparency to this inquiry and to the Scottish inquiry when it takes place, and I’m committed to that in the interests of everybody across this country who was affected by Covid.
Updated
English councils seek £100m to avert collapse of homelessness services
Council leaders have urged Jeremy Hunt to intervene to prevent the collapse of local homelessness services because of the soaring costs of providing emergency housing for evicted families.
A letter signed by a cross-party group of local authority leaders in England indicates that some town halls in effect face bankruptcy and describes mounting temporary housing bills for homeless households as a “critical risk to the financial sustainability of many local authorities”.
It calls for an immediate cash injection of £100m for councils to provide emergency rent support for families at risk of homelessness, together with an end to the four-year freeze on housing allowance rates and long-term investment in social housing.
Read the full report here.
Sunak tells Netanyahu the importance of minimising civilian casualties
Rishi Sunak told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of the importance of taking “all possible measures to minimise civilian casualties” in a phone call on Tuesday.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the two men spoke this afternoon adding:
The prime minister stressed the importance of rapidly increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and welcomed Israel’s commitment to facilitate significantly more deliveries.
He said the UK would support all efforts to ensure life-saving aid reaches those in need, including temporary humanitarian pauses.
The prime minister reiterated the UK’s resolute backing for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, while emphasising the importance of taking all possible measures to minimise civilian casualties.
He said the UK is focused on securing the safe return of hostages and urgently ensuring British nationals and others can leave Gaza, via the Rafah crossing or other routes.
The leaders also discussed the situation in the West Bank and the long-term goal of a two-state solution.
The prime minister noted the importance of all sides avoiding actions that would inflame tensions and keeping hope alive for a more secure and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Updated
MSPs at Holyrood have passed a motion welcoming the publication of the Scottish government’s rural and islands housing action plan.
The motion, passed by 69 votes to 53, highlighted the government’s ambition to deliver 110,000 affordable homes across Scotland, with 10% of these to be located in rural and island areas.
A Conservative amendment that noted that 17% of Scotland’s population live in these areas was defeated by 55 votes to 65, PA News reports.
A Labour amendment, calling for an interim target of having 5,500 houses completed in rural areas by 2026, was also rejected by 22 votes to 96, with three abstentions.
Updated
Oxfam has also been critical of Keir Starmer’s speech.
Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfam’s head of advocacy, said:
A ceasefire is essential to saving lives and allowing aid to flow – to pretend otherwise isn’t credible. It is deeply disappointing that the leader of the opposition and the UK government have continued to rebuff this vital humanitarian call. It matters what these leaders say, not least for ordinary Gazan people who need to know the world is listening to their pleas.
Without a ceasefire, any relief for millions of people trapped in Gaza will inevitably be wholly insufficient and many more civilians will die needlessly.
Updated
The human rights campaign group Amnesty International has criticised Keir Starmer’s stance on the conflict in Gaza.
Referring to the Labour leader’s speech from earlier today, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said:
In failing to call for an immediate ceasefire, Keir Starmer is not showing the clear and principled leadership that this decades-old crisis needs.
Deshmukh said a negotiated ceasefire “would mean a stop to all unlawful attacks by all parties, provide an opportunity for negotiation for the releases of hostages, halt the mounting death toll and enable aid agencies to get life-critical aid, water and medical supplies into Gaza”.
He added it was “deeply disappointing” that Starmer “did not use this moment to be clear that under his leadership the UK would be consistent and rigorous in supporting international law”.
“The Labour leader is right to denounce the war crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on and after 7 October, but his unwillingness to denounce the many years of actions by Israel in Gaza is only serving to prolong this crisis,” he said.
Updated
A large increase in students forced to resit maths and English GCSE exams is putting colleges under “enormous pressure” and harming recruitment to the government’s new T-level courses, the Association of Colleges (AoC) has told the education secretary, Gillian Keegan.
In an open letter to Keegan, the AoC chief executive, David Hughes, said colleges in England were seeing a 30% increase in the number of 17-year-olds having to resit their GCSEs as required by government policy, leading to shortages of teachers and classroom space.
Hughes added:
The numbers starting T-levels is disappointing and falling short of your ambitions and plans. A large part of this is that many potential T-level students did not achieve good GCSEs and are therefore not ready.
Hughes asks Keegan for the Department for Education’s plans to promote T-levels “to parents, employers and students, particularly now that the Advanced British Standard has been announced”. The ABS, unveiled by Rishi Sunak at the Conservative party conference, is said to combine A-levels and T-levels but details remain vague.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon has said she “gave my all” in the response to the pandemic.
Addressing journalists at Holyrood on whether she deleted WhatsApp messages relating to the pandemic, the former first minister said: “Transparency for the families affected, by everybody affected by the pandemic, matters really a lot to me.
“I did my best every day, as you heard me say many times over the course of the pandemic, I did not get everything right but I did my best and I want the process of these inquiries to get to the heart of what happened – the things that governments got right and the things that governments and leaders alike didn’t get right.”
Updated
During the Covid inquiry hearing this afternoon WhatsApp messages were shown from Dominic Cummings illustrating how critical he was of Matt Hancock, the health secretary.
In one message sent in May 2020, Cummings wrote to Boris Johnson:
You need to think through timing of binning Hancock. There’s no way the guy can stay. He’s lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it. He will have to go the question is when and who replaces.
And in another message in August 2020, Cummings said:
I also must stress I think leaving Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or [should] believe on anything, and we face going into autumn crisis with the cunt in charge of NHS still.
That’s all from me for today. My colleague Jane Clinton is taking over now.
Scottish government says it will share 14,000 WhatsApp messages with Covid inquiry
The Scottish government is to share more than 14,000 messages with the UK Covid-19 inquiry – with the first minister, Humza Yousaf, to hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages, PA Media reports. PA says:
In a statement at Holyrood, Scottish deputy first minister Shona Robison confirmed the Scottish government had received a legal notice permitting it to hand over the messages on Monday.
Messages, including those from Scottish government ministers and former ministers, are included in that, Robison said.
The first minister, when submitting a statement to the UK Covid-19 inquiry in the coming days, will “hand over WhatsApp messages unredacted to the inquiry”, she added.
The deputy first minister said a legal order, known as a section 21 notice, had been required before the messages could be handed over because “a number of them were of a particularly personal nature, including photos of individuals’ children and personal medical details”.
With the order now received, Robison told MSPs at Holyrood that work was “well under way” to ensure the messages would be handed over by the deadline set by the inquiry.
The deputy first minister added: “This will mean that all requested messages held will be shared, in full and unredacted, by 6 November.”
She said the Scottish government would “share over 14,000 mainly WhatsApp messages from various groups and individuals over the period of the pandemic”.
Updated
After Hugo Keith KC finished his questioning, counsel for some of the other core participants were given time to put a few questions to Dominic Cummings.
Samuel Jacobs, counsel for the TUC, asks if Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was blocking moves to pay people who needed to stay at home to isolate.
Cummings says he did not know Sunak’s personal view on this. But he said the Treasury was institutionally opposed to this.
He says other countries, like Singapore and Korea, seemed to handle this better.
Q: Why do you think there was no interest in the system in addressing this?
Cummings says people in the system were addressing this.
Q: Why did ministers not accept the idea?
Cummings says he does not know.
Heather Hallett, the chair, says that is the end of the session.
Cummings gets the final word, apologising again for his “terrible language”.
Cummings defends lockdown-busting trip to Durham, but says No 10 handling of media row was 'disaster'
Keith ended by asking Cummings about the Barnard Castle affair, when Cummings took his family from London to his parents’ home in County Durham when the country was in lockdown, and trips like this were supposed to be banned. Cummings also drove his family to Barnard Castle to “test his eyesight” before driving back to London.
Cummings claimed there were security reasons why he needed to leave London. Asked why he needed his family in the car on the trip to test his eyesight, he conceded they did not need to be there.
Asked if he accepted that he caused huge offence, Cummings defended his decision to move his family out of London for a time. But he said the way No 10 handled the story was “an absolute car crash”.
He said:
It was certainly a disaster, the whole handling of the situation. But there were other factors involved with it all as well – testing and PPE and many other things were all going haywire at the time …
In terms of my actual actions in going north and then coming back down I acted entirely reasonably and legally and did not break any rules.
Keith ended by saying that Cummings left Downing Street on 13 November 2020 never to return. And he left No 10 in the control of someone he thought was unfit for office.
Updated
Cummings defends helping to make Johnson PM even though he thought he was unfit to handle pandemic
As Pippa Crerar reports, Hugo Keith asked Dominic Cummings why he helped to make Boris Johnson PM if he thought he was not fit for the job.
Inquiry lead counsel says Cummings helped put into power someone who was, in his view, unfit to respond to pandemic.
“Correct.”
“Are you sorry?”
“No. Politics is about choices. We thought combination of second referendum and Corbyn was so bad that we should roll the dice.”
Inquiry lead counsel says Cummings helped put into power someone who was, in his view, unfit to respond to pandemic.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) October 31, 2023
"Correct."
"Are you sorry?"
"No. Politics is about choices. We thought combination of second referendum and Corbyn was so bad that we should roll the dice."
Here is the full quote:
Politics is about choices.
And the choice that we had in summer 2019 was do we allow the whole situation, this once-a-century constitutional crisis to continue, meltdown and possibly see Jeremy Corbyn as PM and a second referendum on Brexit – which we thought would be catastrophic for the country and for democracy, for faith in democracy – or to roll the dice on Boris and to try and control him and build a team around him that could control him.
We didn’t take that choice lightly. We considered in summer 19 an alternative of staying out of it.
But we thought the combination of second referendum and Corbyn was so bad that we should roll the dice.
Updated
How Johnson accused Cummings of indulging in 'totally disgusting orgy of narcissism' in government
Keith shows a WhatsApp message that Boris Johnson sent to Dominic Cummings after he left No 10. In it, Johnson accuses Cummings of presiding over “a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism”.
In response, Cummings blocked Johnson.
Keith asks Cummings if there was an orgy of narcissism in the government. Cummings replies: “Certainly there was.”
Updated
Cummings says Johnson's relationship with press 'extremely damaging' to government's Covid response
Cummings said Boris Johnson’s concern for the media, and how he felt he had to respond to what it was saying, was “extremely bad and extremely damaging to the Covid response”.
He said there were specific concerns about his relationship with the Barclays and the paper they owned, the Daily Telegraph.
And he said there was “possible corruption in terms of [Johnson’s] relationship with [George] Osborne” and the way money was being funnelled to the Evening Standard, the paper Osborne edited.
This seems to be a reference to the way the government spent money generously on Covid advertising that appeared in the Standard, and most other national newspapers, at a time when they were grateful for extra advertising revenue.
Cummings claims foul-mouthed messages about colleague were not misogynistic, saying he was 'much ruder about men'
Keith asks Cummings if he contributed to the atmosphere of contempt and misogyny in No 10 that was identified in an internal report. Extracts from this were published yesterday.
“Certainly not,” says Cummings.
Keith then presents some messages from Cummings referring to Helen McNamara, the deputy cabinet secretary.
In this one Cummings says he is in a “homicidal” mood and wants to go back to No 10 and fire some people.
In this one, Cummings says he would like to handcuff McNamara and remove her from the building, because they cannot keep ‘“dodging stilettos from that cunt”.
And in this one, he describes moving her to the communities department, where she can build “millions of lovely houses”.
Cummings accepts that his language was “obviously appalling”.
But he claims he “got on well at a personal level” with McNamara.
He says there were structural reasons why he wanted her moved.
Keith says Cummings was clearly misogynistic.
Cummings does not accept this. He says he was “much ruder about men”, and he says he used similar language, or worse, about the PM.
Updated
Cummings says Boris Johnson’s decision to tell Mark Sedwill he had to go was a mistake.
Keith points out that Cummings had contributed to this, by denigrating him to Johnson. He says Cummings had insulted Sedwill, and put poison in Johnson’s ear.
Cummings does not contest this, but he says removing Sedwill in this way was a mistake.
Cummings accuses Matt Hancock of misleading colleagues about PPE and protections for people in care homes
Keith says he will not go into care home policy, and PPE now, because future modules will look at this.
Q: But did you say you had been misled by Matt Hancock, and the health department, about what was being done to protect people in care homes and to procure PPE.
Cummings says multiple people told him what Hancock was saying in morning meetings was not true.
Keith shows an extract from a message sent by Cummings to Johnson in May 2020 saying Hancock was unfit for his job.
Updated
Keith says Cummings says in his witness statement to the inquiry that, if a proper test-and-trace system had been in place, lockdown would not have been necessary. But lockdown became necessary to stop the NHS being overwhelmed.
Q: The lockdown could have been decided upon earlier?
For sure, says Cummings.
Q: From 9 March onwards the government tried to change course. But lack of planning made that hard.
Cummings accepts that.
Q: Later Boris Johnson said “thank God we changed course – it would have been a catastrophe”.
Correct, says Cummings.
Here is the text of the WhatsApp message sent by Dominic Cummings on 12 March 2020 referring to Mark Sedwill and chickenpox. (See 4pm.)
Sedwill babbling about chickenpox god fucking help us …
In the conversation the cabinet secretary said to the PM, ‘PM you should go on TV and should explain that this is like the old days with chickenpox and people are going to have chickenpox parties. And the sooner a lot of people get this and get it over with the better sort of thing’.
And this had been mentioned before this analogy and I said ‘Mark, you should stop using this analogy of chickenpox parties and the cabinet secretary said why. And Ben Warner said ‘because chickenpox doesn’t spread exponentially and kill thousands and thousands of people’.
And the look on people’s faces when Ben said this, that was quite a crystallising moment because it made us (a) think who on earth is briefing the most important official in the country along these lines. This is terrifying.
But also other officials obviously heard this exchange and some of them came to us and said essentially ‘something has gone terribly wrong in the Cabinet Office’.
Keith says around this time there is a reference to Mark Sedwill, the then cabinet secretary, saying the government should describe this as like chickenpox, and remind people about chickenpox parties.
Cummings says Sedwill was told that this comparison was wrong, because chicken pox does not spread exponentially and kill thousands of people. But he says this was a “crystallising moment” because it showed that the most senior civil servant in the country was being wrongly briefed.
Keith presents a minute from a cabinet meeting on 11 March at which Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that if someone did not have a cough and a temperature, they were unlikely to have coronavirus.
Cummings says at that point people in No 10 knew this was not true. He says Hancock had been repeatedly told by Sir Patrick Vallance that this was not true, but he kept saying it anyway.
Asked why the government allowed the Cheltenham festival to go ahead, Cummings says at this point the PM was being told that, if the government banned mass sporting events, people would just watch them in pubs instead – which might be even worse.
At this point no one thought a full lockdown was a realistic alternative.
And he says at this point No 10 was being told that, if restrictions did have to be imposed, they should not be introduced too early – because people would get tired of complying.
Cummings says No 10 was told this was the advice from Sage and SPI-B (the Scientific Pandemic Insights groups on Behaviours). But later Sage and SPI-B said this had not come from them.
Cummings says Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, were referring to this idea.
Keith asks Cummings about minutes from a government meeting in early March saying a global pandemic was “increasingly likely”. He asks Cummings why people were saying that, if by then it had become obvious to the scientists that a pandemic was inevitable.
Cummings says that it was around this point that he realised the system was behind the curve.
Keith asks where the emails are showing Cummings telling Johnson that the Covid action plan presented by the government (see 10.28am) was a joke.
Cummings says he does not know if those emails exist.
Cummings says by the end of February the media were starting to treat Covid as a crisis. That affected the way Whitehall responded, he says.
Keith says Cummings keep saying “the system” did not regard this as a crisis in mid February. But he asks Cummings why he did not make this a crisis?
Cummings says, if Johnson had come back in mid-February, he would have told people not to worry about things.
He cites handshaking as an example. At this point he tried to get Johnson to cut back on handshaking. But Johnson ignored this, he says.
Cummings is referring to this incident.
Updated
Cummings says bringing Johnson back from holiday in mid February 2020 to deal with Covid would have been counter-productive
Back at the Covid inquiry Hugo Keith KC, counsel for inquiry, says by 17 February Sage members were saying sustained transmission was already happening in the UK. Yet the pace of work on Covid slowed down. Why was that?
Dominic Cummings says there was a perception that the problem was months away. And people were on holiday – although Cummings says he personally did not go on holiday.
Q: For 10 days he did not receive any papers relating to Covid?
Cummings questions that. He says there may have been a gap in the paperwork seen by the inquiry.
He says thinks evolved a lot between mid-February and late February.
Cummings accepts that it was “pretty insane” that so many people were away.
But he repeats the point about people thinking the crisis was not imminent.
Q: Why weren’t you banging the door, and telling the PM he had to come back?
Cummings says he was working. But he says he did not think having Johnson there would be productive. It would be counterproductive, because Johnson was likely to warn against the danger of over-reacting, and describe Covid as being like swine flu.
Q: Did you discuss bringing him back?
Yes, says Cummings.
Q: But there is no evidence of that.
Cummings says he was sitting next to Martin Reynolds and Imran Shafi, and discussed it with them. There was no need to write it down.
Updated
Gillian Keegan says she hopes much-delayed trans guidance for schools in England to be out before Christmas
The long-awaited transgender guidance for schools in England will be published before Christmas, the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has promised.
It was originally expected earlier this summer but has been dogged by delay and disagreement, to the frustration of headteachers, who are struggling to negotiate complex issues with pupils and parents without adequate support.
Asked by reporters at an AI hackathon to test how artificial intelligence can reduce teacher workloads and drive up standards in schools, Keegan said she did not want teachers to spend Christmas worrying about the still unpublished guidance. She said:
I have been working on this for a long time, but yes, I very much hope it will be there by Christmas. I know it’s much awaited and I know everybody’s very keen to get it. We’ve been working so hard … It’s very tricky. It is very difficult.
It is for consultation because we’re sure there’ll be lots of opinions around this as well. But you know, we will get it out before Christmas and then we’ll have a long consultation because I don’t want teachers to spend their Christmas worried about it.
The guidance is expected to advise on issues relating to transgender, non-binary and gender-non-conforming pupils, addressing what schools should do if a child wants to change their name or use different pronouns, and advising on issues like sport, toilets and changing rooms.
Updated
Cummings claims he told Johnson in early February containing Covid impossible - but accepts there's no written record of this
Keith says Boris Johnson received a note about Covid on 30 January. And he got an update on 3 February.
There was an update on 8 February, and a meeting on 10 February, Keith says. After that Johnson went to Chevening.
Keith says at that point, if what the chief medical officer and the chief scientific officer were right, it was obvious the virus was going to spread around the world. Why was the PM not told?
Cummings says no one in Whitehall thought that the UK would be in the biggest crisis since the war within a month.
People thought it would take much longer for the crisis to hit the country, he says.
They thought this was a problem for May/June, not March, he says.
Q: But on 6 February you told people in a WhatsApp group that, according to the chief scientist, the virus was going to sweep the world?
Cummings says people thought at that point the future was murky. People were not ringing alarm bells. They were going skiing.
Q: Why did you not tell the PM containment has failed and the virus is coming?
Cummings says he did tell Johnson that.
Q: But there is no record of it.
Cummings says not everything is written down.
Q: Do you accept that there is no written record of anyone telling the PM at this point that containment has failed?
Cummings implies he does, saying Keith has access to the documents.
Updated
Cummings says during February he began to realise that the pandemic plans that Matt Hancock had told him existed did not actually exist.
In No 10 they were told on 16 March that the civil contingencies secretariat did not even have these plans centrally. That message was such a shock that people thought it was a spoof, he says.
Updated
Cummings says until March 2020 people did not even think that lockdown would be an option for a country like the UK.
He says originally the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health and Sage were saying the real danger was a second peak hitting the country in the autumn. That was what was also known as the “herd immunity” approach.
Updated
Cummings says UK could have avoided lockdown if massive test and trace capacity had been in place by March 2020
Q: At what point did people in government realise that without an effective test and trace system, there was no point trying to control the spread of the virus?
Cummings says at the end of February and the beginning of March people were not anticipating test and trace on a mass scale.
Around 12 March test and trace was in effect stopped.
Q: If an effective test and trace system had been put in place in January, February and March, could a lockdown have been avoided?
Cummings agrees.
He says from the end of December flights to and from China should have been stopped.
He says there should have been a hardcore testing system at airports, and a massive ramping up of testing infrastructure, with millions of tests available, and strict border controls.
If that had happened, there would have been less need for lockdown, he says. He says that would have been a better approach – although he accepts that it would not have been possible to produce this testing capacity “out of thin air”.
Updated
Cummings says the UK should have a Singapore-style test and trace capacity.
He says if the country did have that capacity, then the case for border controls is stronger.
Updated
Cummings says the UK did not have the capability to close its borders.
Even if it did, the advice was that it would only hold back the virus for a short time.
And there was also an assumption that closing the borders would be “racist”, he says.
He also says if the strategy was to go for a single-peak pandemic (see 2.26pm), then closing borders would not help with that.
Updated
Cummings says even of the week of 9 March, Downing Street was told that the Sage scientists were in favour of a “mitigation” strategy – which would involve delaying the peak of the epidemic and then relying on the population having “herd immunity” to keep this under control.
He suggests later Sage scientists claimed this had not been their consensus view.
In January and February he says No 10 was told that the biggest threat was from a second peak in September. That is why the single peak strategy was favoured.
Q: If you were not being given an accurate view of what Sage was recommending, why did you not change the Sage structure.
We did, says Cummings.
He says he set up a group to “red team” Sage, and criticise its advice.
Q: How did you get Sage to change the way it presented its advice?
Cummings says he set up a group to interrogate the Sage advice.
It was not his job to tell Sir Patrick Vallance how to manage Sage. His view was that No 10 needed its own people with the skills to handle this data.
Updated
Cummings says Downing Street has 'hopeless structure' for dealing with crisis like Covid
Keith says Cummings has described No 10 has a “hopeless structure” for dealing with a crisis like Covid.
Asked why, Cummings says No 10 is not configured to be “the nerve centre of a national crisis”. It is not set up so people can liaise with each other physically, he says. And it is not good for handling data. Also, the real power is in the Cabinet Office, he says.
Updated
Cummings says he wanted Michael Gove to deal with the leaders of the devolved administrations, not Boris Johnson, because he thought Gove would handle it “10 times better”.
Updated
Keith shows an email from Cummings saying he thought Cobra meetings were “hopeless” for decision making.
Dominic Cummings is giving evidence again. Hugo Keith KC is asking him about Cobra, the government’s emergency committee.
Cummings says Boris Johnson was not keen on attending Cobra meetings.
How Johnson was influenced by desire to appease anti-lockdown rightwing papers like Daily Telegraph
In his written statement to the inquiry, Lee Cain also said that Boris Johnson was influenced by the desire to appease anti-lockdown rightwing papers such as the Daily Telegraph – even though the evidence suggested their anti-lockdown views were wrong. Adam Bienkov from Byline Times has posted the screengrab.
Boris Johnson prioritised the views of the Daily Telegraph over all the actual evidence on the impact of the lockdown, according to this account by his former comms chief Lee Cain. pic.twitter.com/5zMbktLnXW
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) October 31, 2023
Yesterday the inquiry released extracts from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diaries. In one entry, on 28 October 2020, Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said: “The rightwing press are culpable and we have a weak, indecisive PM.”
UPDATE: Harry Yorke, who is now at the Sunday Times, says this is the Telegraph splash that Cain was referring to.
I remember writing up this frontpage story a few years ago and knew it would ruffle feathers in Downing Street.
— Harry Yorke (@HarryYorke1) October 31, 2023
But I don't think anyone was expecting *this reaction*, as revealed in today's evidence session with Lee Cain https://t.co/X19SHMMBiW pic.twitter.com/xueuOWDdNX
Updated
In his evidence to the Covid inquiry this morning Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s communications director during the first phase of Covid, said that he found it hard to support the “eat out to help out” subsidy scheme for restaurants in the summer of 2020, and the government’s attempt to get people back in the office at the same time. Cain said:
I, and particularly the other communicators as well, were just finding it very, very difficult because a huge part of what our role and responsibility is at that point is ‘what are we signalling to the public?’
At this point of developing policy, we are indicating to people that Covid is over – go back out, get back to work, crowd yourself onto trains, go into restaurants and enjoy pizzas with friends and family – really build up that social mixing.
Now, that is fine if you are intent on never having to do suppression measures again – but from all the evidence we are receiving, from all the advice we are receiving, it was incredibly clear that we were going to have to do suppression measures again.
We knew that all the way through, that was the strategy from the start.
So to then move forward and say: ‘Hey we’re going to get back into work’ when business wasn’t even asking for people to come back into work – in fact they were encouraging their employees to stay at home still.
It was government that seemed to be on its own demanding people go to work when the research we had was still quite cautious, businesses were feeding back they didn’t want to do it, the scientific opinion was we were going to have to have another lockdown.
So to me it made absolutely no sense whatsoever why we were talking about getting everybody back to work and they were the stories that ended up being on the front pages.
Updated
Rail ticket office closures in England scrapped in government U-turn
Plans to close railway station ticket offices in England have been scrapped in a government U-turn, Gwyn Topham reports.
Cummings claims 'pretty much everyone' in No 10 agreed with him in calling Johnson 'trolley' because of his inconsistency
Keith is now quoting from another Cummings document extremely critical of how the government machine was working.
Q: Was there any part of the government machine with which you did not find fault?
Cummings says he spent some time talking to special forces, and they were exceptional.
Overall, there was “widespread failure”, he says. There were pockets of people doing exceptional work within an “overall dysfunctional system”.
Q: You complain that the PM ignored you because he was listening to “pop-ins”.
Cummings says that was a term used for when officials objected to a decision, and took the decision to pop in and see the PM, when Cummings was not there, to ask for a rethink. He says they would ask him to “trolley” on this.
Keith asks for a clarification.
Cummings says “trolley” was the term he used for Boris Johnson because he changed his mind so often. He claims “pretty much everyone” used the term to describe Johnson too.
They have now stopped for lunch.
Updated
Cummings says some of the private secretaries at No 10 were young women. He says some of them complained to him about how they felt they were treated by the senior male leadership in the Cabinet Office.
Q: In May you sent a memo saying material from the Cabinet Office and the Treasury should not go directly to the PM?
Cummings says he was trying to empower Tom Shinner, who was an excellent official. The Cabinet Office was a “bombsite”. It was producing inconsistent data.
He says he wanted Shinner to take charge of ensuring that the information that went to the PM was correct.
Shinner was a civil servant, who had been brought to No 10 by Cummings, Cummings says. Shinner had previously worked on Brexit. Cummings says hiring him was one of his best moves.
Q: Do you think your description of your colleagues added to the dysfunctionality at No 10?
No, says Cummings. He claims he is not particulary smart or effective in some ways. But he has built good teams, he says. So he felt he had a duty to speak out.
Q: You say Mark Sedwill, cabinet secretary in 2020, was talented. But you denigrated and insulted him, didn’t you?
Cummings accepts that he said derogatory things about Sedwill, although he says he did not say Sedwill was unable to function.
Q: And you said the PM’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, was not up to the job. You thought he did not force the PM to take tough choices.
Cummings agrees. He says that should be a post held by one of the most able people in the country. He says he twice tried to get Boris Johnson to move him – in January 2020, and again after the first wave of Covid – but he lost the argument.
Updated
Cummings says the Cabinet Office was “incredibly bloated” and inefficient. Even people in charge did not know who was responsible for particular subjects, he says.
Q: Did you think the wrong people were in top jobs there?
Yes, says Cummings. He says some people had been moved after Cummings spoke to the cabinet secretary. But he says, “Whitehall being Whitehall”, they were often promoted.
Cummings defends his foul-mouthed assessments of cabinet ministers, saying his assessments widely shared
Keith says he wants to ask Cummings about his “trenchant views”.
He says in his witness statement Cummings said the cabinet was seen as “largely irrelevant”, not a place for decisions to be taken, and a problem to manage.
Cummings says formally things are decided in cabinet. But in practice decisions are taken elsewhere, he says.
Q: So decisions started to be taken elsewhere?
Cummings queries “started”. He says it had been like this in government for a long time.
Q: Did you contribute to this?
Cummings says he managed this.
He urged the PM to carry out a big reshuffle, and to radically reduce the size of the cabinet, he says. He says Johnson did not agree.
Q: You called cabinet ministers “useless fuckpigs”, “morons” and “cunts”. Were these views shared by others?
Cummings says his appalling language was his own. But those judgments were widespread, he says.
Q: Did you express your views too trenchantly?
Cummings says, if anything, he understated the problem.
Updated
Cummings starts giving evidence to Covid inquiry
Dominic Cummings, who was Boris Johnson’s chief adviser for most of 2020, has just started giving evidence.
As he began, Sky News warned its viewers to expect bad language.
Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, is questioning Cummings. He says the inquiry has had a witness statement. It was “lengthy”, he says (which will be no surprise to anyone who has read a Cummings blog).
Updated
And Pippa Crerar has this, from what Lee Cain was saying while Keir Starmer was speaking.
Lee Cain tells Covid inquiry that Boris Johnson and top team made “huge blunder” by resisting Marcus Rashford’s call for free school meals to be extended.
He said lack of cabinet diversity meant none had received FSM themselves which resulted in “policy & political blind spot”
Lee Cain tells Covid inquiry that Boris Johnson and top team made "huge blunder" by resisting Marcus Rashford's call for free school meals to be extended.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) October 31, 2023
He said lack of cabinet diversity meant none had received FSM themselves which resulted in "policy & political blind spot".
Johnson told cabinet in December 2020 he favoured letting old people get Covid to protect others from impact of lockdown
Turning back to the Covid inquiry, Lee Cain is coming towards the end of his evidence.
While Keir Starmer was speaking, the inquiry was presented with an extract from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diary saying that in December 2020 Boris Johnson told a cabinet meeting that he favoured letting “the old people” get Covid to protect others from the impact of another lockdown. Vallance was the government’s chief scientific adviser.
The Times’ Steven Swinford has posted the extract on X.
BREAKING:
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) October 31, 2023
Boris Johnson said he agreed that 'we should let the old people get it [coronavirus] and protect others' from national lockdown
[On Covid fatalities] 'The median age is 82-81 for men & 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get covid and live l longer' pic.twitter.com/Zbfojs6kVG
UPDATE: PA Media has more on on the extracts from Sir Patrick Vallance’s notebooks shown to the inquiry. PA says:
The government’s former chief scientist described a “bonkers set of exchanges” as he noted that Boris Johnson appeared “obsessed with older people accepting their fate” in the pandemic.
Sir Patrick Vallance wrote in one of his notebooks in August 2020 that Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going. Quite bonkers set of exchanges”.
Another note from Vallance in December 2020, said: “PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not). He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much’. Wants to rely on polling. Then he says, ‘We should move things to Tier 3 now.”
A WhatsApp exchange between the PM and Lee Cain in October 2020, saw Johnson write: “Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital (4 per cent) and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff.”
And Adam Bienkov from Byline Times has posted the screengrabs on X.
Boris Johnson believed he should "let old people get [Covid]", and make them "accept their fate" so "young people [can] get on with it" according to new evidence to the Covid inquiry.
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) October 31, 2023
He told aides he sympathised with view that Covid was "nature's way of dealing with old people" pic.twitter.com/Bc03O9t4nZ
Updated
Q: Do you think Labour MPs calling for a ceasefire have been disloyal?
Starmer says he thinks he has addressed this. He has explained why he is not backing a ceasefire, but what Labour is proposing to alleviate suffering.
He ends by saying he thinks he took a question from every reporter who wanted to ask one.
Starmer says he was “shocked” when he saw video of people tearing down posters of the Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. But he says he does not think the law needs to be changed to address this.
UPDATE: This is from Kate McCann from Times Radio, who asked this question.
I asked Keir Starmer about this video, filmed in his constituency. He said he was shocked to see it. Starmer indicates he believes the police do currently have the powers to tackle it but calls on the Home Secretary to read advice provided to her on what more may be needed… https://t.co/NqJZKqd9P4
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) October 31, 2023
Updated
Starmer says he will apply 'proportionality' when applying collective responsibility rules to those calling for ceasefire
Q: Can Labour frontbenchers call for a ceasefire without facing any sanction?
Starmer says Labour needs collective responsibility. He says he wants to enforce that “with an eye on the context of what we are facing”.
He also says that he has to be mindful of “the proportionality of any measures that are there for collective responsibility”, and that he wants to approach this “sensitively”, engaging with his frontbenchers and understanding what is motivating them.
That sounds like confirmation that frontbenchers who have called for a ceasefire won’t be sacked.
Q: Labour described Andy McDonald’s comments as deeply offensive. Should he be allowed to stand again as a candidate?
Starmer says he cannot comment because a disciplinary process is under way.
Updated
Q: There is evidence Iran played a role in the attacks on 7 October. Do you think the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps should be proscribed?
Starmer says he has to be careful on this. Labour is getting intelligence briefings from the government. He says it is important to ensure the situation does not escalate.
Q: How worried are you about a terrorist attack in the UK?
Starmer says of course he is concerned about the incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia, that schools are being attacked, that Muslims do not feel safe. He says politicians have a duty to tackle these issues.
Q: Are you going to sack the frontbenchers who have broken collective responsibility by calling for a ceasefire?
Starmer says it is his responsibility to apply collective responsibility, and he takes that seriously. He says the party is united in wanting to alleviate suffering.
Updated
Q: (From Muslim News) A majority of people in the UK support a ceasefire. Shouldn’t you back one?
Starmer says he is not suprised by the level of support for a ceasefire. People want to alleviate the suffering. But he says he has asked if a ceasefire would be right if it would allow Hamas to carry out further attacks, and if it would not bring back the hostages. And so that is he s not calling for a ceasefire, he says.
But he says he is not leaving it there. He is also pushing for humanitarian pauses.
Q: And can you see why Muslim people around the world think their lives count for less?
Starmer says each life matters. He has children. Each deaths pains him, and the vast majority of people in the country, he says.
Q: Can you explain what you think is morally justifiable, and not morally justifiable, in terms of what Israel is doing. Two examples: the communications blackout, and telling people to move to southern Gaza and then shelling it. Are those moral?
Starmer says he is not going to break the rule he set out earlier. (See 11.36am.)
But everyone was concerned about the communications blackout, he says.
And he says that, if Palestinians have to flee, it should be clear that they will have a right to return.
He says his speech should not leave people in doubt about what should happen.
Q: (From Jewish News) Some of our readers are concerned about Labour MP speaking at pro-Palestinian demonstrations because of the hatred being expressed at those events.
Starmer says, where there is evidence that offences are being committed, the police should act. It is their job to make arrests where appropriate.
But they also have a duty to allow protests to take place, he says.
He says these are difficult judgment calls.
The right to peaceful protest is a cherished right and we should not give it up, he says.
Updated
Q: Do you accept this issue is tearing Labour apart? If senior Labour figures call for a ceasefire, will they face santions?
Starmer says there is complete unity in Labour on the need to alleviate the suffering in Gaza.
And there is unity on support for a two-state solution, he says.
There are differences on how the alleviation of suffering can be achieved, he says. He recognises that.
But he says it is also his duty to have collective responsibility. He takes that extremely seriously.
Q: Do you disagree with what the government is doing?
Starmer says the government is sharing intelligence with the opposition regularly. He is grateful for that. He says the government and the opposition are “making the same calls”.
Updated
From my colleague Kiran Stacey
Confronted with stories of suffering in Gaza, Starmer says: “The question is not how awful is that, because it is truly awful. The question is, what is the most practical way to do something about it?”
Confronted with stories of suffering in Gaza, Starmer says: "The question is not how awful is that, because it is truly awful. The question is, what is the most practical way to do something about it?"
— Kiran Stacey (@kiranstacey) October 31, 2023
Starmer says it is 'unwise' for politicians to make instant judgments on whether Israel breaking international law
Keir Starmer is now taking questions at the end of his speech about the Israel-Hamas war.
Bronwen Maddox, director of Chatham House, asks what he thinks Britain can do now.
Starmer says “humanitarian aid”. The UK has to make the case of humanitarian pauses, so that aid can get in. He says the UK must also “allow and argue for the release of hostages”. They should not have been taken, and they should be released immediately, he says.
He says Britain must also look to the long term, and promote the two-state solution. He says ignoring this for the past 10 or 20 years has been a “dereliction of responsibility”. Too many people have looked away, he says.
Q: Do you think Israel is acting within international law?
Starmer says Israel has to act within international law.
As for whether each and every act complies with international law, that will have to be adjudicated in due course. He says it is “extremely unwise” for politicians to make “an instant judgment” on issues like this. He says he has looked at these cases in the past, and it can take weeks or months for the evidence to come out.
Updated
There is a live feed of the Keir Starmer speech here.
The full text should be available shortly. I will be covering the Q&A after he finishes delivering the speech on the blog.
Updated
Back at the Covid inquiry, Andrew O’Connor, counsel for the inquiry, says the children’s commissioner for England wanted No 10 to hold a press conference aimed at children, so that they knew they were not being forgotten.
Lee Cain says he does not recall this idea being raised with him. But he says it would have been a good idea.
Keir Starmer is about to give a speech on the Israel-Hamas conflict in which he will try and patch over the growing divisions in his own party over the issue.
Unsurprisingly perhaps a few dozen protesters have gathered outside the Westminster thinktank where he is due to speak.
They are chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a phrase that led to Andy McDonald being suspended by Labour because he used part of it (“the river and the sea”) in a speech. The chant is objectionable to Israelis because it is often understood as meaning they should be removed from that territory. But McDonald insists his words have been misrepresented because they were that he wanted “Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea [to] live in peaceful liberty”.
• This post was amended on 1 November 2023 to clarify what Andy McDonald had said in his speech.
Updated
Cain says Covid was 'wrong crisis' for Johnson given his skill set
O’Connor asked Cain if he agreed with Cummings that Johnson was not up to the job of being prime minister.
Cain said:
I think that’s quite a strong thing to say. I think what will probably be clear in Covid, it was the wrong crisis for this prime minister’s skill set. Which is different I think from not potentially being up for the job of prime minister.
Hallett complained about the term “skill set”, urging Cain to speak in plain English.
Explaining what he meant, Cain said:
I think he’s somebody who would often delay making decisions.
He would often seek counsel from multiple sources and change his mind on issues.
Sometimes in politics that can be a great strength – I think if you look at how he navigated Brexit, he allowed others to make decisions and jumped in last minute and can take political advantage.
I think if you look at something like Covid you need quick decisions and you need people to hold the course and have the strength of mind to do that over a sustained period of time and not constantly unpick things.
That’s where the problems lie, so I felt it was the wrong challenge for him mostly.
Updated
Johnson will take decision based on what's said by 'last person in room', says Cain
O’Connor asks Cain if he agreed with Dominic Cummings when he said that working with Johnson was impossible because he kept changing his mind.
Cain replies:
I think anyone that’s worked with the prime minister for a period of time will become exhausted with him sometimes.
He can be quite a challenging character to work with – just because he will oscillate, he will take a decision from the last person in the room.
I think that’s pretty well documented in terms of his style of operating – in it is rather exhausting from time to time.
Updated
Hallett suggests cabinet should have ordered full lockdown on or soon after Saturday 14 March
Heather Hallett, the inquiry chair, intervenes again to ask a question about the meeting on Saturday 14 March.
Q: If there was a decision taken to go into full lockdown, did that message go out to government? Had the decision been taken properly?
Cain says the decision had to be taken by cabinet.
Q: But a cabinet meeting could have been called very quickly.
Yes, says Cain.
Q: Was it?
Cain says he thinks a cabinet meeting was held within days.
How Cummings said he had to intervene to stop Johnson saying 'stupid shit' during Covid crisis
Q: A lockdown is difficult. But if, on top of that, you have indecision, that makes it worse, doesn’t it?
Cain says indecision was a problem in No 10.
O’Connor asks about an exchange Cain had with Dominic Cummings.
In this exchanges Cummings complained about Johnson being in “Jaws mode wank”. That is a reference to Johnson’s claim that the real hero of Jaws was the mayor who kept the beaches open when there was a shark risk. Cummings also said he had to intervene to stop Johnson saying “stupid shit”.
(I have been watching on Sky News which, rather irritatingly, interrupts every time there is swearing to apologise to viewers.)
Covid inquiry chair Heather Hallett suggests No 10 was wrong to wait 10 days before ordering full lockdown
Heather Hallett, the chair, intervenes at this point. She asks Cain if he is defending the 10-day gap. She says she finds that curious if he is.
Cain says locking down the country is a huge, huge undertaking. In government terms, that is government acting at speed. But it was “longer than you would hope”, he says.
UPDATE: Hallett asked:
Do I understand from what you said earlier that you would defend the 10-day gap between the decision taken that there had to be a national lockdown and actually implementing that decision? Because I find that curious.
And Cain replied:
As I said, I think it is longer than you would like, but I think it’s important just to emphasise the amount of things that had to be done and the amount of people we had to take with us to deliver a nationwide lockdown.
It’s a huge, huge undertaking and to be honest, from my understanding of government, that is government moving at a tremendous speed – which maybe says more about government than other things.
Updated
No 10 staff realised full lockdown was necessary 10 days before it was announced, inquiry hears
Q: The inquiry has heard evidence that Sage scientists were realising in February that NHS capacity could be overwhelmed by a pandemic. Why was that message not getting through to No 10?
Cain accepts that message was not getting through. He says Sage was a broad church, with members having different views.
Q: Around 13 March No 10 advisers were saying the NHS could be overwhelmed. That was news to you?
Yes, says Cain.
Q: On Saturday 14 March there was a meeting in No 10. In your witness statement (see below) you say people at that meeting agreed a full lockdown was necessary. But there was no decision to impose one.
That’s correct, says Cain.
Q: And that lockdown was not announced until Monday 23 March – 10 days later. Was that longer than you expected?
Yes, says Cain. But he says locking down the whole country is complicated,
Updated
Cummings told Johnson on 12 March 2020 Cabinet Office was 'terrifyingly shit' on Covid, inquiry told
O’Connor quotes from a message sent by Dominic Cummings on 12 March when he said he and communications officials were having to take the lead because the Cabinet Office was “terrifyingly shit”.
Cain says in his experience communications people often had to take the lead, because they were aware of the questions that could not be answered.
UPDATE: In his message Cummings said:
We got big problems coming. CABOFF [Cabinet Office] is terrifyingly shit, no plans, totally behind pace, me and Warners and Lee/Slacky are having to drive and direct … We must announce TODAY – not next week – ‘if feel ill with cold/flu stay home. Some CABOFF want delay cos (sic) haven’t done the work and don’t work weekends.
Updated
Cain says Covid 'action plan' published in early March was so thin it showed No 10 did not have real plan
Q: Did you think Covid was a big deal by early March?
Cain says they all thought at that point it was a significant challenge.
But there was no serious plan in place, he says.
O’Connor says Cain is “fairly dismissive” of the Covid action plan published in early March. He says people in government referred to the document as a plan for managing the pandemic. But the document had little detail, and was just a communications device.
Q: Did you see this just a piece of PR?
Cain says anyone who reads the document can see it is not a plan for managing Covid.
He says people in government were concerned because “if this is the plan, then we clearly don’t have a plan”.
Q: You says the document showed the government did not have a proper plan in place. Is that what you felt at the time?
Yes, says Cain.
Q: Did you raise concerns at the time?
Cain says he cannot recall what concerns he raised.
He remembers that, when asked by the media for detail, No 10 was not able to give it.
Q: Did you know Dominic Cummings was asking for a proper plan?
Yes, says Cain. He says at the time Cummings was the only person forcefully asking for a better plan.
Updated
Johnson took two-week holiday in February 2020, inquiry told
O’Connor shows a paragraph from Cain’s witness statement. At the end of January an adviser to the health secretary told Cain the UK might not be prepared for the threat posed by Covid. The adviser mentioned supply chain issues.
Cain says he was involved because he realised No 10 did not have answers to some of the questions the media might be asking.
O’Connor refers again to Cain’s witness statement, and says Johnson took at two-week holiday at this point (mid February). Hugo Keith KC referred to this yesterday, although he did not describe it as a holiday.
Cain defends Johnson’s actions at this point. He says Johnson had been assured that the government was making plans for Covid.
O’Connor asks if Johnson said over-reacting could be more of a threat. Cain confirms that. He says Johnson had a “colourful phrase of language” sometimes.
No 10 'probably complacent' about planning for Covid by early February 2020, says Cain
Q: Where did Covid fit in the hierarchy of concern in January and February 2020?
Cain says it started as a low base issue.
The view was that the UK was well prepared to deal with a pandemic.
The Department of Health was in the lead, he says. But as they moved through January into February, it moved up the agenda.
Q: In January/February you were not worried about the priority being given to Covid?
Cain says in early January he felt it was getting the right about of attention.
In late January and early February, he felt the balance was not quite right.
He says No 10 was “probably complacent”, thinking work was being done elsewhere.
Updated
Lee Cain starts giving evidence to Covid inquiry
Lee Cain is now giving evidence to the Covid inquiry. He is being questioned by Andrew O’Connor KC, counsel for the inquiry.
Cain starts by confirming details of his career. He worked as head of broadcasting for Vote Leave, before working as an adviser for Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary.
Q: Was Boris Johnson a friend?
Cain says Johnson was his boss. They had a good relationship.
He says he had a good understanding of how Johnson would react to something.
Updated
Boris Johnson found it hard to focus on Covid because it was 'bad news of a kind he doesn't like', says former minister
At the Covid inquiry yesterday Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, said that, judging by the paperwork seen by the inquiry, Boris Johnson did not get any submissions about Covid for a period of 10 days in the middle of February 2020 – when the pandemic was becoming a global crisis, and only a month before the UK had to go into lockdown. The two private secretaries giving evidence did not contradict this, although they said they did not know if anyone else was speaking to him at the time about coronavirus. (Johnson was at Chevening.) They could not explain why he was avoiding the issue.
This morning Lord Bethell, a junior health minister during the pandemic, told the Today programme that he thought Johnson was avoiding the topic because he did not like bad news. Bethell said:
I was aware that during the early days of the pandemic, it was extremely difficult to get any response from Downing Street, and we could see this train coming down the tracks at us.
It was put to us there were other priorities including Brexit. I personally found that completely unexplainable and baffling.
I know [Boris Johnson] found the prospect of a pandemic personally very difficult to focus on, it was bad news of a kind he doesn’t like to respond to, and he did everything he could to try to avoid the subject.
Jamie Grierson has the full story.
Updated
Minister dismisses Covid inquiry WhatsApp revelations as 'tittle-tattle', and says Churchill faced criticism in private too
Good morning. The Covid inquiry started taking evidence from witnesses in person in June, but only this week is it starting to interrogate members of Boris Johnson’s inner circle who were in the room with him as key decisions were taken at the start of the pandemic. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, who were in WhatsApp groups with him as key decisions were dodged, fudged or overturned. Yesterday’s hearing provided fresh evidence of the extent to which No 10 was in chaos at the time and today we’ve got two witnesses who potentially could be even more interesting.
In 2020 Dominic Cummings was Johnson’s chief adviser at No 10, and Lee Cain was his director of communications. They were involved in the Vote Leave campaign, and at the time Cummings was arguably the most powerful unelected person in the country. Ultimately he decided Johnson was a disastrous liability, and in 2021 he spent seven hours telling a Commons committee why. (For a reminder of what he said, skim the individual blog post headlines at the top of our blog covering the hearing.) It is hard to believe he has anything more to say, but his capacity for destructive criticism is inexhaustible, and the inquiry hearing will provide us with some of his WhatsApp messages, which did not happen two years ago.
Cain is a close ally of Cummings, but he has said much less about Johnson, and what happened during this period, in public, and so it is harder to predict where he will go. Some observers may also find him a more credible witness than Cummings, whose view of the world is often constrained by the assumption that he is always right and everyone else (with a handful of exceptions – normally geeks) is always useless.
The hearing starts at 10am. I will be covering it most of the day, although there will also be coverage of Keir Starmer’s speech on the Israel-Hamas war. Jamie Grierson has a preview of what he will say here.
This morning Richard Holden, a transport minister, was doing the broadcast round for No 10 and he had to defend the government’s handling of Covid in the light of the evidence revealed at the inquiry. He argued that the WhatsApp revelations were just “tittle-tattle” and that, if Churchill had had an iPhone during the second world war, similar disobliging comments may have emerged. He told Times Radio:
If there was conversations between people and they were recorded throughout history, as they are on WhatsApp, then would it be similarly embarrassing? Would Churchill and Chamberlain have faced a similar, what their colleagues said about them on X or Y day? I’m absolutely positive they would have done. I think that’s tittle-tattle. I don’t think that’s the important issue here. The important issue at stake is what we can learn as a country from our response.
Holden is right to the extent that WhatsApp means there is now a public record of exchanges that in the past might not have been recorded for posterity (although a lot of Churchill’s contemporaries kept and published very detailed diaries). But if he was trying to suggest a stronger parallel between Johnson and the great wartime leader – well, that’s probably best avoided. There is no record of any of Churchill’s colleagues saying he was making Britain look like a “a terrible, tragic joke”.
You might think this is just an argument about the past, but Holden’s response also shows how hard it is for Rishi Sunak to present himself as a “change” prime minister. If No 10 were serious about that, it would have sent Holden into the studios with orders to disown Johnson, trash his record, and stress that Sunak was doing things differently. But No 10 can’t say that because it would not sound plausible and Tory MPs would object, and so instead Sunak’s reputation remains shackled to Johnson’s.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.
10am: Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s former communications director, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry.
11am: Keir Starmer gives a speech “on the international situation in the Middle East”. He will also take questions.
Late morning: Dominic Cummings is expected to start giving evidence to the Covid inquiry. After a break for lunch at 1pm, the hearing will resume at 2pm.
Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, speaks at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.
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