Dominic Cummings’ face is a picture as names he called ministers are read out

While working as a chief adviser to ex-prime minister Boris Johnson during the outbreak of the pandemic, Mr Cummings admitted using the ‘revolting’ expletives.

Since his resignation in November 2020, the 51-year-old has become one of Mr Johnson’s harshest critics.

He is giving evidence on Tuesday as part of the hearing to examine the UK’s response to the crisis and which lessons can be learnt for the future. 

When being questioned, lead counsel for the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, said: ‘You called ministers useless f***pigs, morons, c**** … in emails and WhatsApps to your professional colleagues. 

‘Do you think you contributed to a lack of effectiveness on the part of ministers?’

Mr Cummings replied: ‘No, I think I was reflecting a widespread view amongst competent people at the centre of power at the time about the calibre of a lot of senior people who were dealing with this crisis extremely badly.’

While being forced to listen back to the insults he’d used in messages to fellow employees, Mr Cummings sat with his hand on his face and mouth slightly open.

He also claimed that the cabinet office had very limited power outside of the prime minister and the cabinet secretary, that meetings were ‘for show’ and that decisions were already made by senior officials.

‘I would say the cabinet secretary is something like 100 times more powerful than anybody else in the cabinet apart from the PM,’ he claimed.

‘A large part of the performance and media coverage is used to cover up this fact and portray the ministers as actually in charge.’

The inquiry also heard that Mr Cummings believes there were ‘clearly were some people in the cabinet office who were in the wrong jobs’.

He told the hearing: ‘Like all dysfunctional systems, it was a mix of a lot of wrong people in the wrong job, decades of accumulated power, no real scrutiny and insight, a culture of constantly classifying everything to hide mistakes and hide scrutiny.

‘Management was bad, incredibly bloated with so many senior figures that they themselves didn’t know who on earth was in charge of what.’

When asked by Mr Keith whether he added to the ‘dysfunction’ inside Downing Street during the handling of the pandemic, Mr Cummings said: ‘I think the opposite.

‘A huge part of the problem of the culture in Westminster that was so disastrous in Covid was people not speaking out about core problems.

‘I’m not a very smart person, I’m not a specialist in a lots of ways but I had built very effective teams and I felt that a crucial part of my job was to say to the PM and to other people, if I thought that someone couldn’t do the job.’

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