Boris Johnson delayed autumn lockdown because ‘Covid is only killing 80 year olds’, Dominic Cummings expected to tell MPs

Former chief of staff expected to make allegations about Boris Johnson’s attitude to deaths

Virus Outbreak Britain Politics (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Dominic Cummings is expected to tell MPs that Boris Johnson justified delaying lockdown in the autumn by claiming “Covid is only killing 80-year-olds”.

In a highly-anticipated appearance before the Commons technology and health committees the ex-Downing Street aide is expected to reveal the behind-the-scenes details of the government's response to coronavirus.

The alleged comments expected to be attributed to Mr Johnson, reported by ITV News, come after other allegations that the prime minister said he would rather "let the bodies pile high" than other another lockdown – before the second wave took Britain's death toll to over 150,000.

But amid scattered reports of what he is expected to say at the committee evidence session, Mr Cumming on Tuesday urged caution, posting on social media: "One way to sift the journalists writing about the inquiry is: if they quote childish military metaphors like ‘grenades’ from supposed ‘allies’, they’re inventing either the quote or the ‘ally’ or probably both."

No.10 is yet to comment on Mr Johnson’s alleged comments. Pressed on LBC radio about she was "nervous" about Mr Cummings appearing before MPs, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said: "I'm not nervous at all. It is right that Parliament has these inquiries and scrutiny.

"Of course, next year we will have the full public inquiry because the Government is still focused on tackling the coronavirus and also the road map to recovery.

"We are still busy getting on with the job and I'm sure there will be more interest tomorrow on what is said and the questions asked."

Mr Cummings had previously claimed that it was UK government strategy to pursue "herd immunity" for the UK by not fully suppressing Covid-19 – which ministers deny but for which there is some evidence dating from March.

Allies of Mr Cummings briefed newspapers over the weekend that he is ready to “napalm” Mr Johnson’s administration.

The ex-chief of staff had on Saturday bombarded social media with a long thread alleging incompetence and “lies” from the government over lockdown.

The former top Downing Street aide said the media had failed to properly scrutinise the government and instead “parroted” its claims to have never advocated herd immunity, despite evidence to the contrary.

He also lashed out at his former colleagues in government and claimed that the country could have avoided the need for lockdowns had it had “the right preparations and competent people in charge”.

Despite previously being a central part of Boris Johnson's administration, enmity between Mr Cummings and the government has grown since his departure in November.

Months of silence from the former adviser turned to riotous anger in April after No 10 sources blamed Mr Cummings for leaking the prime minister’s texts.

The former Vote Leave strategist hit back hard, denying the claims and dropping several other related and unrelated bombs on the government operation.

He accused the PM of a “mad and totally unethical” scheme to get Tory donors to pay for a Downing Street flat refurbishment, and claimed Mr Johnson had refused to accept a leak inquiry to protect a friend of Ms Symonds.

He will be appearing at a session titled Coronavirus: Lessons Learnt, and is expected to accuse Mr Johnson of being responsible for excess deaths during the pandemic.

Britain has suffered one of the worst death rates in the world from Covid-19, with repeated delays and dithering over the introduction of lockdown measures blamed.

In a 5 March 2020 interview, Boris Johnson said there was “a need to strike a balance” in imposing restrictions that would flatten the peak of the pandemic to reduce strain on the NHS but allow “the disease, as it were, to move through the population”.

The government’s chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance told the BBC at the time: “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time.”

He added: “Our aim is to try to reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely. Also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it.”

At a press conference a week later, on 12 March, Sir Patrick added: “Our aim is not to stop everyone getting it, you can’t do that. And it’s not desirable, because you want to get some immunity in the population. We need to have immunity to protect ourselves from this in the future.”

He later told MPs that herd immunity, through simply letting the virus rip through the population, was never the plan for the pandemic response.