The Health Secretary tried to shrug off a slew of extraordinary messages that were revealed on social media by maverick ex-No10 chief Dominic Cummings.
The WhatsApps revealed by Mr Cummings included brutal assessments by the PM at the height of the crisis in March and April last year – including repeatedly branding Mr Hancock ‘hopeless’ over PPE and testing and suggesting Michael Gove would have to take over.
As he drove to the Commons in an official car today for a debate on delaying ‘Freedom Day’, a journalists shouted: ‘Are you useless, Mr Hancock?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied.
In one exchange from March 27 last year, Mr Cummings criticised the Health Secretary over the failure to ramp up testing. Mr Johnson replied: ‘Totally f****** hopeless.’ He then tried to call his senior aide three times without managing to get through.
Another from the same day saw Mr Cummings complain that the Department of Health had been turning down ventilators because ‘the price has been marked up’. Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.’
On April 27, Mr Johnson apparently messaged Mr Cummings to say that PPE was a ‘disaster’, suggesting that Michael Gove should take charge instead.
‘I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.’
Mr Cummings dropped the incendiary revelations in a lengthy post on the Substack blogging platform just minutes before PMQs.