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Hancock attacks ‘toxic’ Cummings at Covid inquiry
Screen grab from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry Live Stream of former health secretary Matt Hancock giving evidence at Dorland House in London, during its second investigation (Module 2) exploring core UK decision-making and political governance. Issue date: Thursday November 30, 2023.

DISGRACED former health secretary Matt Hancock told the Covid inquiry today that he is not a liar but Dominic Cummings is a malign actor.

Maintaining the government’s impression of rats in sacks, the minister in charge of Britain’s pandemic response at the time blamed the chaos on premier Boris Johnson’s top aide Cummings, who created a “toxic culture” in Downing Street.

Mr Hancock, later sacked for being caught on camera in an intimate breach of Covid rules with an aide, also admitted that the country should have locked down at the start of March 2020, three weeks before it eventually did.

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