How the top female civil servant abused by Dominic Cummings took quiet and deadly revenge

Helen MacNamara, Whitehall’s most senior woman, told the Covid inquiry how Boris Johnson sanctioned behaviour that was ‘miles away from what is right or proper or decent, or what the country deserves’, writes John Rentoul

Helen MacNamara recalls being described as a ‘c***’ by Dominic Cummings (UK Covid-19 Inquiry/AFP via Getty)

Dominic Cummings apologised for his “terrible” language at the Covid inquiry yesterday, but didn’t seem to mean it. Helen MacNamara, on the other hand, delivered her evidence with the impeccable manners you would expect from a former top civil servant.

But if anything, her measured criticism of the way that Boris Johnson handled the pandemic was even more explosive than Cummings’s freewheeling attack on his former boss.

MacNamara responded to the appalling sexist rant by Cummings, revealed at the inquiry yesterday, with an understated calm that was so much more damning for its restraint and decorum. And she politely but sharply made it clear not just who was responsible for the “toxic”, “macho” culture in No 10 during the coronavirus crisis, but who was responsible for tolerating such demeaning behaviour.