Helen MacNamara was right — from the 2008 crash to Covid, it’s the male, pale and stale club that are to blame

The misogynous and macho behaviour of Boris Johnson’s inner circle, laid bare at the Covid inquiry, has echoes of the 2008 financial crisis, when rampant greed, aggression and recklessness of male bosses brought down the banks. It’s made me convinced that leadership without women just doesn’t work, writes Chris Blackhurst

Dominic Cummings, a former chief adviser to the prime minister, was accused of misogyny at the Covid inquiry this week (PA)

Among the most striking aspects of this week’s evidence to the Covid inquiry were the use of offensive language and misogyny among the then prime minister Boris Johnson’s inner circle.

Dominic Cummings called the UK’s most senior female civil servant a c*** in a WhatsApp message sent to Johnson and Lee Cain in August 2020. He was referring to deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara, who had commissioned a report into poor behaviour within the Cabinet Office.

Cummings’s message read: “If I have to come back to Helen’s bullshit with PET [propriety and ethics] designed to waste huge amounts of my time so I can’t spend it on other stuff – I will personally handcuff her and escort her from the building. I don’t care how it is done but that woman must be out of our hair – we cannot keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging stilettos from that c***. [sic]”