LONDON — Unelected Boris Johnson aide Dominic Cummings acted like he was the prime minister “in all but name,” a senior Conservative told Britain’s COVID-19 inquiry.
Sajid Javid — who served as both chancellor and later health secretary under Johnson — said in evidence to the inquiry that then-prime minister was “largely content” to let his most senior adviser run the country as the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.K.
The Conservative MP quit as chancellor under Johnson in February 2020, as the crisis began to escalate. It followed major tensions between Johnson’s Cummings-led No. 10 Downing Street operation and Javid’s Treasury.
In a statement which was read out at the inquiry — which is looking for lessons learned from the government’s response to the pandemic — Javid said that during his time as chancellor, Cummings “sought to act as the prime minister in all but name,” and “tried to make all key decisions within No 10 — not the prime minister.”
“I felt that the elected prime minister was not in charge of what was happening in his name and was largely content with Mr Cummings running the government,” the statement added. “I did not think that was right and that was why I ultimately resigned.”
Asked about his comments as he gave evidence in person Wednesday, Javid said he believed the No. 10 operation was “dysfunctional” as the pandemic loomed.
“I think many ministers had noticed who really seemed to be making a lot of decisions,” he said.
Javid added that he often found that many requests made to him in Johnson’s name were actually, upon “probing further,” made by Cummings.
The bad blood between Cummings and Javid goes both ways. In a tweet after Johnson made Javid his health secretary in 2021, Cummings said the former chancellor is “bog standard”, “awful for NHS” and “useless” — and that if he hadn’t forced Javid’s exit back in February 2020, the government would have been in “total chaos.”
