BORIS Johnson branded Matt Hancock "totally f***ing hopeless" and wanted to replace him with Michael Gove, bombshell WhatsApps today released by Dominic Cummings reveal.
The vengeful ex-No10 aide published an expletive-ridden 7,000-word blogpost stuffed with explosive screenshots of texts with the PM.
One message from March 2020 shows Mr Cummings complaining about Mr Hancock's handling of Britain's sluggish testing rollout.
The PM bluntly replies: "Totally f***ing hopeless".
Mr Johnson later appeared to denounce efforts to procure PPE in the first wave as a "disaster".
Scolding the Health Secretary had botched the job, he added: "I can't think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on."
In an excoriating blogpost Mr Cummings:
- Accuses Mr Hancock of “lying” and trying to rewrite history by pretending he had the “heroic” idea of ramping up testing to 100,000 a day
- Claims the PPE shortage "killed" NHS staff
- Says Mr Hancock ignored the plight of care homes because he was busy planning his testing press conference
- Accuses No10 of lying and covering up
- Doubled down calls for the Health Secretary to be sacked
- Claims the PM wants to delay the inquiry until after he's left office
- Says PPE was delayed as officials “shipped it” rather than fly it in – to save money
- Hails Dominic Raab as better at chairing meetings than the PM
Mr Cummings published the dynamite takedown on his new Substack blog just minutes before Mr Johnson got to his feet in the Commons for PMQs.
Last month the former Downing Street adviser – who was ousted in December amid a power struggle – used a session with MPs to accuse Mr Hancock of bungling care home testing and brazenly lying during the crisis.
He claimed the PM didn't rate Mr Hancock and wanted him sacked – something the Health Sec denied in his appearance at the committee last week.
Mr Cummings laid out questions he believed Mr Johnson should be asked about the Government's handling of the pandemic.
He wrote: "Given his failures on testing, care homes and PPE why did you keep in post a Secretary of State you described yourself as 'totally f**king hopeless' and how many more people died as a result of your failure to remove him?
"Why is No10 lying, including to Parliament, about the fact that the original plan was "herd immunity by September" and had to be abandoned?
"When did Patrick Vallance brief you on NHS data showing that the death rate at the first April peak was much higher than before/after the peak and do you now agree with Hancock that every patient got the treatment they needed?
"Do you now agree with Hancock that there was no shortage of PPE or do you agree with yourself in April 2020 that PPE supply was 'a disaster' that required moving Hancock?
"How many people died in care homes because of what you called the 'disaster' on PPE and what you called Hancock's 'totally f***ing hopeless' performance on testing in March?
"When will the SoS come to the House and correct his many false statements to MPs?"
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