Grant Shapps brands Dominic Cummings’ bombshell evidence to MPs a ‘sideshow’ and claims the PM’s former top aide has an ‘agenda’ as the Government tries to spike his guns
- Grant Shapps today labelled Dominic Cummings’ evidence to MPs a ‘sideshow’
- The Transport Secretary claimed the PM’s former top aide has an ‘agenda’
- Meanwhile, Government sources moved to try to spike Mr Cummings’ guns
Grant Shapps today labelled Dominic Cummings’ bombshell evidence to MPs about the Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic a ‘sideshow’.
The Transport Secretary accused Mr Cummings of having an ‘agenda’ as he appeared to question whether the PM’s former top aide is a ‘reliable’ witness.
Number 10 is braced for a damaging onslaught from the Vote Leave maverick as he addresses a joint session of the health and science select committees.
Government sources moved overnight to try to spike Mr Cummings’ guns as they took on his central claim that pursuing ‘herd immunity’ was the initial strategy for responding to the crisis.
Grant Shapps today labelled Dominic Cummings’ bombshell evidence to MPs about the Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic a ‘sideshow’.
The Transport Secretary accused Mr Cummings of having an ‘agenda’ as he appeared to question whether the PM’s former top aide is a ‘reliable’ witness
Mr Cummings has said ‘herd immunity’ was the ‘Plan A’ and the Government has ‘lied’ when it has repeatedly denied that was the case.
However, Politico said it had been shown WhatsApp messages from last March which apparently torpedo the claims.
Politico said the messages showed that Mr Cummings had privately ordered Cabinet ministers to deny ‘herd immunity’ was ever official policy.
He reportedly told ministers they should argue that achieving ‘herd immunity’ was simply a secondary long-term effect of the Government’s original ‘mitigation’ strategy.
Mr Cummings is expected to use his evidence session with MPs to step up his criticism of Boris Johnson’s response to the crisis after he used a lengthy Twitter thread to make a raft of initial accusations.
But Mr Shapps told Sky News: ‘I’ll leave others to determine how reliable a witness to all this he is.
‘He was there at the time, what his motives would be I will leave to others.
‘As I say, I think what most people are interested in in when are they getting their second vaccine, if they haven’t had it already, or when are they getting their first one if they are younger.
‘Good news on that is that we are coming down to 30 year plus this week actually.
‘So we are getting through the population of Britain, getting down through the age groups and I think that is what will be focusing most people’s attention this week rather than a side show over a former adviser who has his own agenda, presumably.’
The Transport Secretary acknowledged mistakes were made in the response to the pandemic but said the Government was responding to an unprecedented situation.
‘There was no rulebook and of course there have been mistakes made,’ he said.
He claimed that Mr Cummings ‘has probably tweeted most of what he’s going to say already’ ahead of his appearance before MPs.
Mr Shapps added: ‘We were making decisions under an unprecedented situation, there’s no rulebook, there’s no textbook to open and see how to deal with a pandemic, the last time the world faced anything like this was 100 years ago with Spanish flu.
‘It’s easy to be professors of hindsight.’
On the ‘very big calls’ like the vaccine programme and developing mass testing, Mr Shapps said ‘we got it right’.
Asked whether Mr Cummings was a ‘trusted adviser’ to the PM, Mr Shapps said: ‘He was certainly an adviser of the Government. It’s for others to decide the trusted part of it.’
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