Since he left his post last November, the former adviser to Boris Johnson has been slacking off.
On several occasions, Dominic Cummings - mastermind of the Brexit campaign - has criticized the man of whom he has been one of the right-hand men and, more broadly, the whole government.
This time, it was in front of Parliament that he distributed the bad points.
What happened ?
This Wednesday, Dominic Cummings was questioned by a parliamentary committee - made up of science and health committees.
During his interview, he openly criticized the government's strategy in the fight against Covid-19, accusing some of not having understood the seriousness of the epidemic, others of having lied, all of having failed.
Before this hearing - which the media had anticipated as a "Domaggedon", contraction of Dominic and Armageddon, which means apocalypse - the former adviser had already poured out his anger and his accusations in a very long thread of nearly 70 tweets.
67 / As shown to PM, his study, Sat morning, 14/3, by Ben Warner / me: 'Current plan' = disaster vs 'actual plan'.
The PlanB whiteboard is just behind.
'The official plan is a disaster, we need Plan B' pic.twitter.com/xZmPL6MGNb
- Dominic Cummings (@ Dominic2306) May 27, 2021
Who is implicated?
In addition to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, described many times as "not competent", the main accused is Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health.
He was appointed to his post in the summer of 2018, while Theresa May was still in charge of the country, and retained his role in the government formed by Boris Johnson.
What are the charges?
On several occasions during his hearing, Dominic Cummings questioned Boris Johnson's ability to lead the country.
In addition to the personal attacks against the Prime Minister, he especially assured that "tens of thousands of deaths could have been avoided" with better management and reiterates that the government - which defended itself from it - was initially targeting the collective immunity.
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He also assured that Matt Hancock had lied on many points, in particular when he said that residents of nursing homes hospitalized because of Covid-19 would be tested before their return to the establishment in order to avoid clusters.
"We later found out that was not the case," Dominic Cummings said, as reported by The Guardian.
The ex-adviser also accused Matt Hancock and the entire health department of slowing the launch of the vaccination out of pessimism. According to him, the government was so certain that the vaccines would not be available in 2020 that the distribution took a long time to find its cruising speed, when it could have started much faster, as early as December 8 - the day of the launch. in the countryside.
Among the flood of attacks, Dominic Cummings criticized the Secretary of State for Health for having mismanaged stocks of protective equipment and for having blamed the director of the NHS (the health system public) and the Minister of Finance.
However, according to the former adviser to Boris Johnson, an internal investigation would have shown that Matt Hancock had lied and that the responsibility for the mismanagement of the material lies with him.
What is the government's response?
He rejects the accusations as a whole.
Boris Johnson assured that some of Cummings' claims were even "unrelated to reality" and Matt Hancock that they were "not true", reports the BBC.
However, the Labor Party - in opposition - criticizes the latter for not answering pressing questions, some of which have been addressed by Dominic Cummings, in particular on protective equipment and retirement homes.
What is it really ?
As the Guardian reports, the former adviser has yet to provide concrete evidence for his claims. However, some British scientists estimate that around 33,000 lives could have been saved if the government had responded more quickly to the crisis. Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, for example, quickly let it be known that if the first containment had been put in place a week earlier, 22,000 deaths could have been avoided, recalls the British daily. In the same vein, the Sage (scientific advice group for emergencies) had warned very early of the risks of the second wave. Here again, models have shown that bringing forward the second confinement by a month could have avoided 8,000 deaths.
However, and despite Dominic Cummings' new accusations, a public inquiry into the management of the health crisis is not yet on the agenda on the other side of the Channel. Despite pressing demands from the families of victims and the Labor opposition, the government has announced that such an investigative process will not be launched until next year.