Dominic Cummings’ key claims, from plan to inject Boris Johnson with Covid to why lockdown was delayed

In hour-after-hour of testimony, the government’s response to the pandemic was shredded

Here are the most dramatic claims made by the ousted former No 10 chief adviser, in his marathon evidence session before MPs.

* The government “failed” the public – leading to “tens of thousands” of unnecessary deaths

Dominic Cummings opened by saying Whitehall “fell disastrously short of the standards the public has a right to expect”, admitting his own culpability for some of the mistakes made.

In perhaps the killer quote of the day, he then said: “Tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die.”

* It was suggested Mr Johnson be injected with coronavirus “live on TV” – to illustrate it was harmless

In February, as the pandemic loomed, Boris Johnson “regarded this as just a scare story, he described it as the new swine flu”, Mr Cummings said.

Officials wanted him to “just tell everyone ‘it’s swine flu, don’t worry about it, I’m going to get Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus so everyone realises it’s nothing to be frightened of’.”

* Mr Cummings urged the prime minister to order a lockdown on 12 March – 11 days before it was finally imposed – warning of 100,000-500,000 deaths

However, there was “no plan” for doing so and scientific advisers did not want to “push the panic button” as they instead pursued the policy of “herd immunity”.

A day later, he claimed deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara told him: “I think we are absolutely f*****, I think this country is headed for disaster, I think we’re going to kill thousands of people.”

Professor Neil Ferguson later estimated that a week-long delay in issuing a “stay at home” order cost up to 25,000 lives.

* Mr Johnson was distracted by Donald Trump and a row about his dog

Describing 12 March as “a surreal day”, Mr Cummings said the US president wanted the UK to “join a bombing campaign in the Middle East tonight”, while Carrie Symonds, his fiancee, was upset about a media story about her dog Dilyn.

“Part of the building was arguing about whether to bomb Iraq, part of it was arguing about whether to have a lockdown and the prime minister’s girlfriend was going crackers about something completely trivial,” he said.

* The Covid response was fatally undermined by Mr Johnson’s flip-flopping

The failures were inevitable when “the prime minister changes his mind 10 times a day and then calls up the media and contradicts his own policy, day after day after day”, he said.

Later, he described Mr Johnson as being “like a shopping trolley – smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”.

* Mr Johnson wanted to be “the mayor of Jaws”, explaining the failure to impose border restrictions

In the book and film, the mayor of Amity famously did not want to close the beaches because it would ruin the tourist industry – despite the presence of a man-eating shark.

Mr Johnson regretted the first lockdown and was determined to prioritise the economy last autumn, saying – numerous times – he “should have been the mayor of Jaws”.

“Fundamentally there was no proper border policy because the prime minister never wanted a proper border policy,” Mr Cummings said.

* The Cabinet Secretary concluded Mr Hancock was “lying” about PPE shortages – and wanted him fired

The health secretary blamed Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive, and the chancellor Rishi Sunak for the lack of equipment, but Mark Sedwill investigated and found the claim to be “completely untrue”.

“I have lost confidence in the Secretary of State’s honesty in these meetings,” the Cabinet Secretary was alleged to have said. Mr Cummings said he had kept a note.

* Matt Hancock wrongly said patients discharged to care homes would be tested for Covid – angering Mr Johnson

“Hancock told us in the Cabinet Room that people were going to be tested before they went back to care homes, what the hell happened?” he was said to have shouted, when the truth came out – albeit “a less polite version”.

Mr Cummings added: “All the government rhetoric of ‘we put a shield around care homes’ and blah blah, was complete nonsense.”

* A test-and-trace system was delayed – because of Mr Hancock’s “stupid” target to carry out 100,000 tests a day

Mr Cummings alleged the strategy was distorted by the health secretary’s attention-grabbing wish, in April last year, to go on TV and say “look at me with my 100k target”.

“It was criminal disgraceful behaviour that caused serious harm,” he said.

* Mr Johnson embraced the “chaos” of the pandemic – apparently believing it made him more popular

Mr Cummings planned to quit last year, but suggested to the prime minister that he was more frightened of him than he was of the Covid crisis.

“Chaos isn’t that bad, it means people have to look to me to see who is in charge,” the prime minister allegedly replied.

* Mr Cummings said he personally heard Mr Johnson say he would rather see “bodies pile high” than impose another lockdown

“I heard that in the prime minister’s study,” he told the MPs, adding it was “immediately after he finally made the decision to do the lockdown on 31 October”.

In April, in the Commons – after Mr Johnson denied saying it – Keir Starmer noted that ministers are required to resign if they lie to parliament.

* He condemned Mr Johnson’s shelving of the long-promised public inquiry until last year – warning documents will go missing

“There is absolutely no excuse for delaying it. The longer it’s delayed, the longer people will rewrite memories, the longer documents will go astray, the longer the whole thing will just go cancerous,” Mr Cummings said.

* His notorious flouting of lockdown rules by fleeing London for County Durham was “the right thing to do” – but he made an “absolute Horlicks” of explaining it

The reason was fears for his family’s safety after a gang gathered outside his home “saying they’re going to break into the house and kill everybody inside”, which he failed to be open about.

Mr Cummings also insisted he told the truth in claiming he drove to Barnard Castle to test his eyes, saying: “If I was going to make up a story, I would have come up with a hell of a lot better one than that one.”