London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Cummings ready to testify that Boris rejected his lockdown advice

Cummings ready to testify that Boris rejected his lockdown advice

As many hospitals struggle to cope with a surge of Covid-19 patients, the most important judgement yet to be made about 2020 is how much difference it would have made had England been pre-emptively locked down in September.
This is not an academic question. Because there were two separate occasions in September when the prime minister's political and scientific advisers urged him to impose tough national restrictions and suppress the incidence of the virus back to low levels.

It is well known that on 21 September the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommended a short ‘circuit-breaking’ lockdown.

But I have learned that within Downing Street, it was at the beginning of September that Boris Johnson was urged by officials and colleagues - led by his former adviser Dominic Cummings - to impose tough new controls on our behaviour.

I am told that Cummings, his ally Ben Warner and leading members of SAGE were in favour of ‘whacking it [the virus] early]’. According to a source they argued ‘you should do it now because it will save lives and minimise disruption’. But the prime minister and the Chancellor Rishi Sunak argued that ‘we can't justify it now’, so it didn't happen.

In early September, at a meeting in the Cabinet Room, Cummings and Warner presented data about how the virus would spread by the end of October without such suppressive measures. They believe they were proved right: ‘at the end of October, a meeting then replayed exactly what the data team had projected’, the source says.

It was at the end of October that the circuit breaking lockdown was finally ordered by the prime minister. But by then the virus was already so prevalent in so many parts of the country that the lockdown was the precursor to the widespread imposition of the ‘stay-at-home’ tier 4 in most of England.

By chance I interviewed the SAGE member John Edmunds on the 7 September when he warned that the virus was spreading ‘exponentially’. At the time, Cummings was taking advice from Edmunds, among others.

Edmunds is one of many scientists who believe it was a serious error not to lock down in September.

I asked the prime minister in my interview yesterday whether he made a mistake in rejecting the advice to lock down in September. He said that there were other considerations for him at the time and that there is evidence the tiering system he later introduced was beginning to work, before the new strain of coronavirus became such a pernicious factor.

Cummings's record on coronavirus is mixed. His controversial trip to Barnard Castle is widely seen to have undermined public confidence in lockdown measures. But his colleagues - including senior non-political Whitehall officials - say that before both the first and second lockdowns he urged the prime minister to take suppressive measures earlier than the prime minister was prepared to do.

A senior official who still works for the prime minister says: ‘In March Dom was storming around Downing Street shouting “lock down now”’.

I am told that an important cause of the breakdown of relations between the prime minister and Cummings in the autumn was that the PM was aware Cummings thought he had ‘f***ed up’ by not locking down in September.

It is understood Cummings would give evidence on oath about all this to any future public enquiry.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
×