'Led by donkeys': Dominic Cummings says it's crackers Boris Johnson is prime minister
Dominic Cummings has said it is “crackers” that Boris Johnson is prime minister.
As part of his damning evidence about the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Cummings said there are “thousands of people” who could provide better leadership.
Cummings, who was Johnson’s chief adviser until November last year, was giving long-awaited testimony to the House of Commons health and social care and science and technology committees on Wednesday.
Responding to a question from Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey, an ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Cummings told the hearing: “There’s a very profound question about the nature of our political system that means we got, at the last election, a choice between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.
"I think any system which ends up giving a choice between two people like that… is obviously a system that’s gone extremely badly wrong.”
Cummings is a key person behind Johnson’s rise to become PM. He was campaign director of the winning Vote Leave campaign – of which Johnson was a figurehead – ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
As Johnson's chief adviser, he was also pictured smiling outside Number 10, Downing Street the morning after the 2019 election.
At Wednesday's hearing, Cummings added it’s “completely crazy” that he himself was in “such a senior position” as Johnson’s key aide.
“I’m not smart, I’ve not built great things in the world. It’s completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there, just the same as it’s crackers that Boris Johnson was in there and the choice at the last election was [between him and] Jeremy Corbyn.
“The problem in this crisis was lions led by donkeys over and over again, with great people on the ground doing things… but the leadership, people like me and the prime minister and [health secretary Matt Hancock], we let down the people on the front line.
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"You guys in the political parties need to ask yourselves: ‘What is about your parties that give choices like Johnson versus Corbyn and we have to ask what is about Whitehall that promotes so many senior people who are completely out of their depth?'"
Earlier in the session, Cummings attacked Johnson for failing to take coronavirus seriously at the beginning of the outbreak, claiming the PM said he wanted to be injected with the disease on live TV.
Watch: 'He wanted to be injected with coronavirus’: Dominic Cummings says PM thought Covid was a ‘scare story'
