My takeaway from the testimony of Dominic Cummings? We needed more women in the room

What emerged from hours of questions was that at the very heart of government during the pandemic, there was just a bunch of blokes trying to out-swing each other, writes Katy Brand

Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, on his way to give evidence to MPs (PA)

Where were you when Dominic Cummings was giving his evidence to MPs on Wednesday morning? I was in my living room, trying to work on something else, and failing. One friend shared on social media that he was driving through the vast magnificence of the Outer Hebrides with it playing on the radio. Another texted she was up at 4am in New York to tune in. Where was Angela Merkel, I wonder? Or Jacinda Arden? Or Iceland’s Katrin Jakobsdottir? Or Finland’s Sanna Marin? Were they watching too?

Where indeed were any women at all? Because they were strangely absent from Dominic Cummings’s account of the maximum chaos raging around 10 Downing Street once the true scale of the Covid-19 pandemic emerged back in early 2020. The pandemic was real. And it was about to get realer.

In fact, the only really senior woman mentioned in the whole six hours was the only person who seemed to have grasped the severity of the situation. Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser described how everyone got a wake-up call when the then deputy cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara, said to him the immortal words: “There is no plan. I think we’re absolutely f***ed. I think we’re going to kill thousands of people.”

Would that there had been someone – anyone – else with that kind of insight in the vicinity, and the UK might have been spared the worst of what followed, which was the best part of a fortnight of panicked messing about, indecision, denial, and a semi-lockdown that wasn’t properly announced on 16 March 2020, which was finally FINALLY followed by lockdown proper on 23 March.

Cummings, in his somewhat belated mea culpa, suggested that if they had bit the bullet on full lockdown only a week earlier, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. And then of course, as we now know, they made the same mistake all over again in September.

Are they about to give us a third encore, just for old time’s sake? That remains to be seen. But what I still don’t see is any women. Apart from Priti Patel, who can be relied upon to come out in her odd "home secretary" cosplay jacket and say something ignorant and awful – at least to me – as the occasion demands to provide some distraction. But I’m talking about competent, qualified women.

The list of names above – the female leaders of the countries that have fared best in this whole dreadful saga, in terms of infection rates, death rates and economic impact – would suggest that having a woman in charge, or at least highly involved, is an advantage.

What emerged from Cummings’s seven-hour testimony was that at the very heart of government when the proverbial was really hitting the fan, there was just a bunch of underqualified posh blokes trying to out-swing each other, pretending they had a plan when they didn’t, and those were the ones that turned up at all. The others, apparently, were skiing.

The prime minister, meanwhile, was making a little love nest with his new lady and writing an unnecessary book about Shakespeare that will no doubt, like his Churchill tome before it, be nothing more than a thinly veiled autobiography about a genius who should just be left alone to do whatever he wants lest his idiosyncratic superpowers become sapped by the pressure of too much responsibility.

There were photos released to the press frequently throughout the pandemic that were supposed to show the men in the corridors of power hard at work, with whiteboards aplenty, pointing fingers, hands on hips, and shirtsleeves rolled up. I think it was meant to be impressive. But every time I saw one, I just thought, where are the women? Why are there no women here? At all? Ever?

Perhaps the gossip is right, and Carrie Symonds holds some sway in the background, but if those instructions are largely concerning the exact carat-value of her new wallpaper or whether or not the dog is getting the correct type of PR, then I don’t know if it’s much use in the current circumstances. Perhaps it would have had more impact in Versailles circa 1774?

Boris, Dominic, Matt, Michael, Rishi, Dominic again (more Dominics than women, eh?), you’ve had your chance. And you seem to have "absolutely f***ed" it. Please let some more Helens in the room from now on.