UK PM's ex-aide reignites row with release of WhatsApp messages

London, June 16

Dominic Cummings, the former top aide of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on Wednesday reignited an ongoing row over the government’s handling of the pandemic as he shared WhatsApp messages believed to be received from his former boss.

Boris Johnson’s former Chief Strategy Adviser, who left Downing Street unceremoniously last year, has previously made withering attacks on UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock and claimed the minister should have been sacked for 15-20 things, including “for lying” to people. Following Hancock’s own evidence before a parliamentary committee to deny all allegations, Cummings took to his blogpost to brand the Cabinet minister’s parliamentary evidence as an attempt to rewrite history. “Number10/Hancock have repeatedly lied about the failures last year,” he writes in his blog. In screenshots of WhatsApp messages he has shared alongside, the Prime Minister appears to call Hancock’s efforts “totally f****** hopeless” in response to a message from Cummings and in others seems to consider replacing him. The 7,000-word blogpost dubs Hancock’s version of events as “fiction” and criticises “systemic incompetence” surrounding the UK Prime Minister. PTI