How chaotic was the British government in the corona pandemic?
Influential Johnson consultant Cummings attacks his former boss sharply.
London - For a long time he was considered a puller, a "gray eminence" in London - more precisely in Downing Street, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
But then in November 2020 Dominic Cummings fell out with him, he left the government in an argument.
Pictures made the rounds of the famous black door with the number 10 slamming behind him as he walks down the street with a box.
Great Britain was shaken several times in the corona pandemic, many people died, and the British had to endure lockdowns for a long time.
In numerous Twitter messages, Cummings has been giving an account of his actions at the time for over a week and accusing the government of inaction.
Now he also unpacked in Parliament about Johnson's corona policy.
Government members accuse him of a campaign of revenge.
Cummings in the UK Parliament: "Disastrously falling short of standards"
The ex-government adviser criticized Johnson's corona policy as a catastrophic failure. Ministers, officials and advisers were "catastrophically lagging behind the standards that the public can expect in a crisis," said Cummings on Wednesday before members of two lower house committees of the British Parliament. “When the public needed us most, we failed.” It was only at the end of February 2020 that it was seen that the contingency plans were “hollow”. The government called for home office work too late and left pubs and sports facilities open too long. Cummings apologized to the relatives of the corona dead. According to Johns Hopkins University, over 128,000 people have already died in connection with Corona
(as of May 26, 11:20 a.m.)
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Former consultant unpacks: Johnson completely underestimated Corona at the beginning of the pandemic
The government failed to see the signs of the spreading pandemic, said Cummings, who was Johnson's most important and influential advisor at the time.
The British Prime Minister had completely underestimated the corona virus at the beginning of the pandemic.
Cummings even said the head of government wanted to get infected with corona to show that the virus was not dangerous.
Johnson later actually contracted the virus.
It hit him so hard that he had to be treated in an intensive care unit for days.
Cummings testified, “In February 2020, Boris Johnson thought it was just a scary story.
He thought it was the new swine flu. ”He went on to claim that Johnson said,“ I'm going to get (the chief medical advisor) Chris Whitty to inject me with the coronavirus live on TV so everyone can see it's nothing before he must be afraid. "
Corona policy in Great Britain: achieve herd immunity with corona parties?
The government's real plan was to achieve herd immunity. In mid-March, then-top-level official Mark Sedwill said that Johnson should call on the population to coronavirus parties, similar to how parents organize chickenpox parties for their children. That was official advice from the Department of Health, Cummings claimed. Department head Matt Hancock should have been fired repeatedly, he had "lied" in many cases, for example about the procurement of protective equipment. Cummings and other high-ranking people would have said that to Johnson repeatedly. Hancock is still in office.
Cummings also denied his former boss Boris Johnson the qualities of leading a government. There are "thousands upon thousands" of people who are more competent. The fault is the system that produces leaders like Johnson or former opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, said Cummings. He also explicitly referred the criticism to himself. "It's just unbelievable that someone like me should have been there, just as it is unbelievable that Boris Johnson was there and that Jeremy Corbyn stood for the vote in the last election." There are many brilliant minds among the professional civil servants, but too many responsible persons like Johnson or Health Minister Matt Hancock are incompetent. "The problem in this crisis was that lions were often led by donkeys."
Boris Johnson reacts: dealing with the pandemic is "excruciatingly difficult"
Johnson has already responded to the serious allegations and defended his corona policy.
"We have tried in every phase to minimize the loss of human life," he said on Wednesday in Parliament in London.
Dealing with the pandemic is "terribly difficult".
Johnson emphasized, “None of the decisions were easy.
It is traumatic for every region to go into a lockdown. "
Ex-consultant Cummings came under fire in the corona pandemic because of his behavior, including when he was traveling through England with corona symptoms.
(dpa / cibo)
