The Dom bomb
In an extraordinary day of testimony, Dominic Cummings set out in excruciating detail what he sees as the government’s failures on a systemic and personal level that led to “tens of thousands” of unnecessary Covid deaths.
In a gruelling seven-hour session, the PM’s former chief adviser turned nemesis delivered an excoriating verdict on the lack of preparedness for a pandemic and let rip at senior figures.
Boris Johnson, he said, was unfit to be prime minister. Cummings said: “There’s a very profound question about the nature of our political system that means we got at the last election a choice between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson,” forgetting perhaps that he had campaigned to put Johnson in Downing Street.
He aimed a particularly devastating salvo at Matt Hancock: “The Secretary of State for Health should have been fired for at least 15 to 20 things including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the Cabinet room and publically.”
He blamed the health secretary for failing to shield care home residents, adding: “I said sack him almost every week, sometimes almost every day.”
Cummings described how in March 2020, a “group think” belief took hold in Whitehall that a UK-wide lockdown wouldn’t work and the virus would have to run its course. This led to a crucial delay, a mistake that was repeated in the second lockdown in the autumn. As for the preparations for a pandemic, Cummings said simply: “There was no plan”.
The broad thrust of Cummings’ testimony came as little surprise; he had trailed his main lines of attack in sprawling Twitter threads over the past few weeks. What was more surprising was his willingness to admit personal fault. His voice trembled at the very beginning of the session as he apologised for not hitting the panic button sooner.
“When the public needed us most the government failed. And I’d like to say to the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry I am for the mistakes that were made and for my own mistakes.”
So what’s the damage to the PM and the government?
The session was full of explosive claims and damning indictments. But zoom out from the drama and the detail and Cummings was telling a story that the public already knows. Many have already made up their minds on how the pandemic was handled: the government botched the initial response and should have locked down sooner. But it was in uncharted waters and mistakes were inevitable. Now the vaccines have arrived people are willing to move on.
And yet, despite appearances, Cummings’ testimony wasn’t about settling old scores. The purpose of the inquiry is to learn lessons to prevent a future pandemic. His evidence was brutal and compelling. Whatever the political fallout, it will be vital in helping the inquiry – not to mention historians – piece together what exactly went wrong.
Threats and forced confessions
Belarus’s dictator has accused the West of launching a “hybrid modern war” against Minsk as he defended his grounding of a Ryanair flight so that Roman Protasevich, a journalist and critic of the regime, could be arrested.
Lukashenko said that sanctions in response to the hijacking were part of a plan to topple him and threatened to flood Europe with migrants and drugs by loosening border controls.
Following what appeared to be a forced confession by Protasevich, a video released last night of his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who was also arrested, appeared to show the Russian law student admitting to crimes that could carry a 12-year jail sentence in Belarus.
Bill Browder, a businessman and critic of the Belarusian President’s ally Vladimir Putin, said today that for international sanctions to really hurt the regime they had to target Lukashenko’s coffers. “In order to have an effect on Lukashenko they have to go after the money men, the people who look after his money… and that will be the key,” he said.
“If they sanction the deputy minister of transport, that’s not going to have any additional impact. If they sanction an oligarch who is funding the regime, that will.”
Blimps are back
Eighty-four years after the Hindenburg disaster produced one of the most iconic and horrifying images of the 20th century, zeppelins could be on the brink of a renaissance.
A small Bedford-based company, Hybrid Air Vehicles, has developed a safe, environmentally-friendly airship which it hopes will fly on commercial routes across Europe by 2025.
The £25 million prototype, 100-passenger Airlander 10 airship can take off and land on almost any flat surface. Trips would take about as long as by aeroplane but with just a tenth of the carbon footprint.
Blimps have been reduced to a novelty in recent years, but a burgeoning industry could nudge our near future closer to the parallel worlds of Philip Pullman’s epic trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, where zeppelins transport troops into battle, explorers to the arctic and regularly fly between Oxford and London.
Mattie Brignal,
News Editor