Dominic Cummings said the government’s pandemic response was very much a case of “lions led by donkeys” in an astonishing admission today.
Signalling that those at the top, including the prime minister and the health secretary, were out of their depth, he told MPs:
“In any sensible, rational government it is completely crazy that I should have been in such a senior position. I’m not smart. I’ve not built big things in the world.
“The leadership, people like me and the prime minister and the secretary of state for health, we let down the people on the front line.”
He said the system is largely to blame for these faults, pointing to the two candidates competing in the 2019 election.
“Any system which gives you the choice between [Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn] … is obviously a system that has gone extremely badly wrong.”
“There are so many thousands of people who could obviously provide leadership better than those two.”
Related: Cummings: When the public needed us most, Government failed
