Former aide to blame Boris Johnson for UK Covid death toll

PM’s former Chief Adviser prepares explosive dossier attempting to link Boris Johnson’s ‘failures’ with UK’s high Covid death toll. 

Ex chief advisor Dominic Cummings believes the government was too slow to shut the borders when the pandemic began. Picture: Getty

The former British government aide, Dominic Cummings, is preparing a dossier of evidence that will attempt to blame Boris Johnson personally for the tens of thousands of deaths during the second wave of the pandemic in the United Kingdom.

The British prime minister’s former chief Adviser is expected to use his select committee appearance before MPs next month to criticise his former boss for failures that have given Britain one of the worst death tolls in Europe.

No 10 aides fear that Cummings has nothing to lose and has enough “kompromat” on Johnson to damage him. Picture: AFP

Last night (Saturday), Cummings launched a fresh attack on the prime minister, suggesting the government had been too slow to shut the borders when the pandemic began.

The former aide, who is seeking an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the response to the pandemic, appeared to criticise ministers for failing to introduce travel bans for more than nine months after the virus came to Britain. He tweeted that this was a “very important issue re learning from the disaster”, in response to a thread pointing at how Vietnam had insulated itself and limited its death toll to just 35.

V important issue re learning from disaster -- https://t.co/SnkxR693nG

— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) April 24, 2021

No 10 aides fear that Cummings has nothing to lose and has enough “kompromat” on Johnson to damage him. “Dominic has copies of everything and knows where all the bodies are buried,” said an ally of Cummings. “He was pushing the prime minister hard to lock down sooner in the autumn and he has lots of evidence that shows that his decision to delay led to devastating consequences.”

The number of deaths in the second wave has surpassed those of the first. The total is now more than 125,000. No 10 is prepared for the onslaught, and will mount a defence, saying that the second wave accelerated when the new variant was discovered in December - months after the row over lockdown.

Downing Street also fears that Cummings could expose embarrassing details about Johnson’s links to controversial leaders, such as Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and may even reveal details about the prime minister’s life with his fiancee, Carrie Symonds.

Cummings went to war with No 10 on Friday when he published a 1,000-word blog post in response to accusations that he had leaked details of the second lockdown before it was announced and had also made public the prime minister’s 2020 texts with the billionaire Brexiteer James Dyson.

An excerpt from Dominc Cummings explosive blog post. Picture: dominiccummings.com

According to friends, Cummings “went nuclear” because of fears No 10 was attempting to blame him for the leaks, leaving him exposed to a potential police investigation.

The explosive post, which questioned Johnson’s integrity and competence, came after a month dominated by allegations of Tory sleaze. Cummings also claimed Johnson had attempted to secretly fund $100,000 worth of renovations to the Downing Street flat he shares with Symonds.

On Friday, the prime minister attempted to defuse the row by announcing that he had personally paid back pounds $100,000 towards the costs.

The same day, his Adviser Lord Udny-Lister unexpectedly resigned. The Conservative peer, 71, Johnson’s longest standing aide, had stayed on the payroll of two property developers throughout his time in No 10.

Cummings alleged that Johnson sought to shut down a lockdown leak inquiry after learning it could implicate Henry Newman, a friend of his fiancee. Last night (Saturday) allies of Newman denied Cummings’ suggestion that he was culpable. They added that the inquiry had moved on since Cummings left government, and dismissed his claim that he and Lee Cain, the former No 10 director of communications, had been exonerated.

A government official said: “The investigation is still live and it would be wrong to think we have landed on any one individual or, for that matter, completely exonerated anyone.”

Cummings will give evidence on May 26 to the joint investigation of the health and science select committees into the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic.

Johnson’s decision to blame Cummings was a result of months of frustration following a series of leaks. The prime minister is understood to have told his political team that they are not to speak to Cummings or Cain.

The Times