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LONDON — Boris Johnson’s top adviser Dominic Cummings described the U.K.’s governing Cabinet as “useless fuckpigs” and urged a round of sackings at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
In summer 2020 WhatsApp exchanges shown at Britain’s official coronavirus inquiry Tuesday, Cummings lambasted the government’s most senior ministers — and called on Johnson to carry out a reshuffle.
The messages were sent as Johnson’s government reeled from a rise in COVID-19 cases after deciding to reopen key parts of the economy — and get pupils back to school — following that spring’s lockdown.
“Don’t think sustainable for [then-Education Secretary Gavin Williamson] to stay [at the Department for Education],” Cummings texted, as he urged Johnson to sack his education secretary and carry out a reshuffle to “focus minds intensely.”
After Johnson said it would be “fatal” to brief the Cabinet about an upcoming reshuffle, Cummings raged that he was making a “big big mistake” in the next message.
“At the moment the [Westminster] bubble thinks you’ve taken your eye off ball, you’re happy to have useless fuckpigs in charge, and they think that a vast amount of the chaotic news on the front pages is coming from No 10 when in fact it’s coming from the Cabinet who are ferral [sic],” he texted.
He later warned of possible “leadership challenges” if Johnson didn’t move to change his ministerial ranks — and emphasized the importance of sacking then Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a figure Cummings views with particular disdain.
The eventual reshuffle was not carried out until September 2021, long after Cummings had left Downing Street.
Pressed on those messages at the inquiry Tuesday, Cummings said: “My appalling language is obviously my own but my judgment of a lot of senior people was widespread.”
And he added: “I would say, if anything, it understated the position.”
Giving evidence Tuesday, Johnson’s former Director of Communications Lee Cain — who was included in the message chain — argued the messages were sent at a high pressure time for the government and those involved. However, he blamed the crude language on a “lack of diversity” within No. 10 — and placed the blame for this at Johnson’s door.
“Fundamentally any No. 10 is a direct reflection of the principal, and I think that’s probably the case here,” Cain said.
