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Dominic Cummings has accused Matt Hancock of “flat out lying” to the Covid Inquiry by claiming he was the first to push for the UK to go into lockdown.
The former health secretary Hancock claimed he urged then prime minister Boris Johnson to enforce a lockdown on March 13, 2020.
But in a scathing post on X (formerly Twitter) as Hancock was still giving evidence to the inquiry, Cummings said that was untrue.
He said: “Hancock flat out lying to Inquiry claiming he privately pushed for lockdown on 13th with PM – but admits there’s no evidence for it .”
Hancock flat out lying to Inquiry claiming he privately pushed for lockdown on 13th with PM – but admits there's no evidence for it – and again on 14th in mtngs – when evidence from ALL others & paper trail is that he was still pushing Plan A herd immunity 13-15th – and his Perm…
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) November 30, 2023
Cummings also claimed that he “physically stopped” the then-health secretary coming to a meeting the following day because he “was bull****ting everybody about herd immunity”.
But an ally of Hancock said: “Cummings is not a reliable witness and this tweet is wrong.
“Matt called Boris on 13th, argued for lockdown on 14th and then Boris invited Matt into the smaller meeting after Cummings had tried to exclude him.”
Giving evidence today, Hancock told the inquiry that Cummings was a “malign influence” who created a toxic “culture of fear” in government.
Cummings is not the first witness to accuse the former health secretary of dishonesty.
In an earlier evidence session, former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance told the inquiry that Hancock had a habit of saying things that “were not true”.
And Helen MacNamara claimed he “regularly” told colleagues things “they later discovered weren’t true”.
Former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara also said Hancock would say things “which surprise people because they knew the evidence base wasn’t there”.
Hancock refuted these claims during his evidence session.
Covid inquiry counsel Hugo Keith also seemed skeptical at the legitimacy of Hancock’s lockdown assertions. He asked why there was no mention of it in his book, Pandemic Diaries.
“There is a whole page on how you woke up from the dawn flight to Belfast … you then went to Cardiff and so on.
“Telling the prime minister of this country, for the first time, that he had to call an immediate lockdown, is surely worthy of some recollection, is it not?”
Hancock replied: “I didn’t have full access to my papers for the writing of that, and this came to light in researching the papers ahead of this inquiry.”
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