UK Prime Minister Boris Jonson allegedly criticized his Health Secretary Matt Hancock at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic calling him "hopeless," according to a private WhatsApp message published by Johnson's former chief aide Dominic Cummings on Wednesday
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2021) UK Prime Minister Boris Jonson allegedly criticized his Health Secretary Matt Hancock at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic calling him "hopeless," according to a private WhatsApp message published by Johnson's former chief aide Dominic Cummings on Wednesday.
In the screenshot of a text message exchange between himself and Johnson, Cummings noted that the US is ramping up its testing capacity, and slammed Hancock for saying he was "sceptical" about the UK meeting the previously announced target of 10,000 virus tests per week.
The prime minister purportedly responded: "Totally f****** hopeless," apparently referring to Hancock.
According to Cummings, the WhatsApp exchange took place at 11.39 pm on March 26 last year "minutes before" the Johnson tested positive for COVID-19.
After stepping down from his job in December, the former chief advisor in Downing Street has targeted much of his criticism against the government's handling of the pandemic at the prime minister and the health secretary.
On May 26, in a seven-hour statement before the Parliament's health and science select committees, the former aide made an unprecedented attack on Johnson and Hancock, blaming them for tens of thousands of unnecessary coronavirus-related deaths.
Cummings said, for example, that his boss was "unfit" to be prime minister and that at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak he had downplayed the threat by calling it a "scare story" and repeatedly ignoring advise to lock the country down.
Asked about the authenticity of the message exchange, Johnson's spokesman refused to comment on the allegation, and claimed that the government's priority was recovering from the pandemic, delivering the vaccination campaign and moving through the roadmap out of the lockdown.
Earlier, the leader of the Scottish National Party in Parliament, Ian Blackford, directly asked Johnson to clarify "whether the derogatory comments that he expressed about his health secretary are valid or no," but the prime minister ignored the question.
