Michael Gove warned that the government was “f***ing up” its Covid response at the height of the pandemic and would “regret it for a long time”, bombshell new WhatsApps messages reveal.
The expletive-laden messages shared at the Covid inquiry show the senior cabinet minister told No 10 strategist Dominic Cummings weeks before the first lockdown that the situation was “worse than you think”.
Mr Gove also apologised to the families who lost loved ones for mistakes made by the Conservative government – admitting the UK was too slow into the first and second lockdowns in 2020.
In a foul-mouthed message, the then-Cabinet Office minister told Mr Cummings in early March 2020: “I don’t often kick-off. But we are f***ing up as a government and missing golden opportunities.”
Mr Cummings, then Boris Johnson’s top adviser, called the Cabinet Office a “f****** joke” in his response, complaining that officials had lied about the existence of a plan to tackle the pandemic.
On yet another explosive day at the official Covid inquiry, it emerged:
In Mr Gove’s sweary exchange with Mr Cummings, the former top No10 adviser revealed that he was considering throwing in the towel and taking his family to the countryside.
Weeks before he eventually did leave London to stay in a cottage on his parents’ farm in Durham, Mr Cummings told Mr Gove: “I’m tempted to take my family to the countryside and hold a press conference saying you’re on your own, the Cabinet Office and parliament have f****d us all.”
“People should be shot,” he added in the 11 March exchange. Mr Gove asked who he envisaged in government being first in the firing line, before Mr Cummings replied: “Not for phones.”
It came after Mr Gove said he wished Mr Johnson and the government had implemented the first national lockdown on 16 March 2020, a week before the PM announced the move on 23 March. He also said he wishes stricter measures had been brought in during the autumn.
Listing what he saw to be failures, the cabinet minister told the Covid inquiry: “I believe that we were too slow to lock down initially, in March. I believe that we should have taken stricter measures before we eventually decided to do so late in October.”
Mr Gove also the government’s approach to testing was “not as rigorously thought through as it might have been”. And he said: “I am also concerned that we did not pay enough attention to the impact, particularly on children and vulnerable children. of some of the measures that we took.”
He also listed poor targeting of Covid testing and the way PPE was bought among the government’s other key failings. But he declined to throw much criticism at his cabinet colleagues, offering rare defences of Mr Johnson and former health secretary Matt Hancock.
The now levelling up secretary denied Mr Johnson “oscillated” over key decisions, telling the inquiry: “He preferred gladiatorial decision-making rather than inquisitorial. He wanted to see the two cases or the three cases rehearsed in front of him, or even rehearsed in his own mind.”
“Any prime minister is entitled to test propositions,” Mr Gove added – but said it took Mr Johnson “a little longer” to see the need for the first lockdown in March 2020 than others.
And he insisted “too much was asked” of Mr Hancock’s department at the beginning of the pandemic. “I have a high opinion of Matt Hancock as a minister. However, I believe that too much was asked of DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) at that point.”
He added: “We should collectively have recognised that this was a health system crisis at an earlier point and taken on to other parts of government the responsibility for delivery that was being asked of DHSC at the time.”