What will Dominic Cummings say?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

When Dominic Cummings appears in front of a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, the former aide is expected to attack Whitehall's institutional structure, a lack of government transparency in the pandemic, and the Prime Minister himself.

In a still growing Twitter thread, the former aide has laid out his critique of how the government handled Covid-19. He says herd immunity was 'literally the official plan' in March, and that a detailed response was 'bodged amid total & utter chaos.'

But how much damage can he do the PM? The Conservatives are just coming out of a successful local election campaign, the country is on course for social restrictions to end on 21 June, and the latest YouGov poll shows just 14 per cent of Brits trust Cummings. Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is sponsored by Canacord Genuity Wealth Management, award-winning wealth managers who go above and beyond to support and guide you.
0:09.2	Visit can-dowealth.com to start building your wealth with confidence.
0:17.8	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast.
0:22.8	I'm Isabel Hardman and I'm joined by Katie Balls and James Forsyth.
0:27.4	Well, the Indian variant seems to be receding, not in terms of the number of cases, but in terms of the amount of concern it is causing government.
0:35.6	James, give us an update on what ministers and government
0:38.3	scientists are now thinking. So the vaccine effectiveness figures for the Indian variant are
0:44.9	reassuring, particularly after a second dose, which I think explains why there's such an emphasis
0:49.7	on trying to get second doses to people. I also think there's a feeling that what you're,
0:55.7	the fact that you're not seeing hospitals, not in Bolton itself, but in the surrounding area,
1:01.5	aren't seeing a big surge in cases. It's also been seen as a reassuring sign. And so I think
1:08.7	there is a bit more optimism that you might get a kind of fuller June 21st,
1:13.7	you know, that we've talked before in this podcast about there, there's two different versions
1:17.5	of June 21st. There's a version of June 21st where the working from home instruction goes,
1:23.6	where masks go everywhere with public transport, social distancing goes, meaning that pubs and restaurants can be full.
1:30.0	Always a very different June 21st, but the legal limit on the number of people at a gathering goes,
1:35.4	but you still have to have social distancing, you still have to have masks, people have still been encouraged to work from home.
1:40.9	I think in government, I mean, there is a greater optimism that the June 21st
1:44.6	that we are heading towards looks more like the form of and the latter. Katie, this is good news
1:49.7	for Conservative MPs as well, isn't it, because they had been worried that Boris Johnson was going
1:53.9	to end up imposing more restrictions or delaying the timetable. So it's good news for Harmony in the
1:59.3	Conservative Party, of nothing else.
	...

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