London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Aug 24, 2026

Cummings to release ‘crucial document from Covid decision-making’

Cummings to release ‘crucial document from Covid decision-making’

Boris Johnson’s former senior adviser posts series of tweets relating to UK coronavirus strategy

Dominic Cummings has said he will release a key document on Covid decision-making in government when he appears in front of MPs next week as part of their inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.

The prime minister’s former senior adviser, who departed in December, has made it clear in recent months that he believes crucial mistakes were made in the early weeks of the pandemic, including on border closures and mask-wearing.

“I’ve got the only copy of a crucial historical document from Covid decision-making,” he tweeted, saying he could offer up the document for auction as a non-fungible token to raise money for the family of Covid victims.

In a later tweet, he said he would give the documents to the joint inquiry, which is being conducted by MPs on the Commons’ health select committee and the science and technology committee.

Cummings is due to appear before the committee next Wednesday, where he has said he will answer questions “for as long as MPs want”. He has also said he is prepared to submit private text messages to any Covid-19 inquiry.

No 10 said it would not comment on the disclosure threat. “I’m not going to speculate about what information individuals may or may not choose to present at committees,” Boris Johnson’s spokesman said.


Cummings has made a number of critical comments in recent days about mistakes the government made during the pandemic, including calling the UK’s borders policy “a joke”.

In a Twitter thread, he said that “political pundits” had spread a “tradeoff” argument between lockdown and economic recovery, saying that evidence was clear that “fast hard effective action [is] best policy for economy AND for reducing deaths/suffering”.

He said Westminster, across the spectrum, had been “totally hostile to learning from east Asia” including countries such as Taiwan.

He said it was based on “nonsense memes like ‘asians all do as they’re told, it won’t work here’. This is what many behavioural science ‘experts’/charlatans argued, disastrously, in February 2020. This nonsense is STILL influencing policy, eg our joke borders policy.”

Cummings suggested that half measures initially pursued by the government had been the worst of both worlds. “Pseudo ‘lockdowns’ [without] serious enforcement are hopeless: econ[omy] hit and people die anyway, nightmare rumbles on.”

He also suggested that the relative success of the UK’s vaccine taskforce and subsequent rollout of the vaccination programme had made the government complacent.

The government should have been willing to take even more risks on the vaccine programme than it did, he said, including immediate human challenge trials, which he said could have resulted in vaccines as early as last summer.

Cummings said he regretted how little public scrutiny of the government’s plans had been permitted, including its vaccine programme and meetings with scientific advisers.

“I can think of no significant element of Covid response that would not have been improved by discarding secrecy and opening up,” he tweeted.

“Who is writing the plan for ‘how we deal with something worse than covid?’ If we get this right now, we do not need to have this sort of disaster again…. The covid plan was supposed to be ‘world class’ but turned out to be part disaster, part non-existent. I urged inside government to do a review of other contingency plans for more dangerous things than covid.

“MPs [should] force publication of vaccine/variant plan & require mostly open review of other contingency plans before we find out the hard way they’re as ‘world class’ as the covid plan.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Prime Minister Andy Burnham to Give Ukraine Classified Storm Shadow Blueprints for Domestic Missile Production
UK Graduate Job Vacancies Plunge 45% to Lowest Levels on Record
Iranian Hackers Shut Down British Power Plant for Four Days in Landmark Cyber Attack
Novak Djokovic Reveals Relentless Self-Doubt and Rejects Retirement in New Documentary
Trump Imposes 50% Tariffs on Canadian Goods After Bilateral Trade Talks Collapse
First Bus Bars Unaccompanied Under-Sixteens From Evening Services in Stoke-on-Trent
Lithium-Ion Battery Fires Cost UK Waste Sector About One Billion Pounds a Year
Reform UK Proposes Lower Social Housing Priority for Foreign-Born Naturalised Citizens
UK Government Deploys AI Drones in Crackdown on Illegal Waste Dumping
EU Biometric Border Checks Cause Disruption for British Travellers and Freight Operators
UK Expands Voluntary Drug Treatment Programme for Sex Offenders to Twenty Prisons
CrossCountry Cancels Most Services After Major Power Failure at Control Centre
Met Office Warns El Niño Could Bring Severe Autumn Storms and Higher Food Prices
Resolution Foundation Says UK Productivity Growth May Be Stronger Than Official Data Suggest
Andy Burnham Proposes Giving Regional Mayors Greater Planning Powers
UK Government Overhauls Planning Rules to Accelerate Housing Near Transport Links
Russia Withdraws Ambassador to Britain and Warns of Retaliation Over UK Drone Supplies to Ukraine
Iran-Linked Hackers Blamed for Cyberattack That Shut Down UK Power Plant
Andy Burnham Pledges UK Support for Long-Range Missile Production in Ukraine
Australia Combines Indigenous Fire Knowledge With Satellite Tech to Combat Catastrophic Wildfires
Father and Son Jailed in Scotland Over £900,000 Airport Cannabis Smuggling Operation
UK Fraud Reports Surge Sevenfold as Criminals Exploit QR Codes in Parking Meters and Phishing Emails
Brighton Thrash Aston Villa in Four-Goal Opening Half as Manchester City Trail Bournemouth
Erin Patterson Appeals Triple Murder Convictions After Hotel Mixed Sequestered Jury With Prosecution
Bank of England Maintains Close Watch on Banks Amid Global Economic Uncertainty
Warm Weather and Tourism Support UK High Street Spending During Summer
Westminster Faces Continuing Political and Administrative Fallout From Epstein Files Release
UK Invests in Domestic Defence Drone Manufacturing to Strengthen Military Supply Chains
Around Five Million UK Households Face Higher Mortgage Payments by 2028
Bluetongue Virus Cases Rise Across England, Wales and Scotland
UK Government Holds First National Day for Victims and Survivors of Terrorism
Historic Summer Droughts Threaten UK Harvests and Put Further Pressure on Food Prices
UK Economy Holds Up in Second Quarter Despite Global Energy and Geopolitical Pressures
UK Opens National Artificial Intelligence Safety Testing Facility
UK Government Finalizes Plans to Bring Remaining Regional Rail Services Into Public Ownership
Environment Agency Imposes Record Penalties on Water Companies Over Illegal Sewage Discharges
Great British Energy Announces Offshore Wind Partnership in North Sea
UK Government Tightens Planning Rules to Accelerate Housing Development
NHS Launches Digital Overhaul to Cut Elective Care Waiting Lists
Bank of England Signals Interest Rates May Stay Higher for Longer as Inflation Pressures Persist
The rise and fall of Hui Ka Yan, China’s richest man
Woke: Britain Considers Plain Packaging for Cigars as Specialist Shops Warn of Industry Collapse
Britain's Public-Service Productivity Remains Below 2019 as £80 Billion Output Gap Fuels WFH Debate
Mandelson Epstein Case in Jeopardy as U.S. Files Stay Out of Reach
Prince Harry and Six Others Ordered to Pay £9.5 Million After High Court Defeat
Bank of England Holds Interest Rate at 3.75% as Inflation and Energy Risks Persist
UK AI Security Tests Find Autonomous Agent Attempting Malicious Code Injection
UK Economy Grows 0.4% in Second Quarter Amid Global Pressures
UK Joins European Allies in Condemning Israeli Settlement Plans in West Bank E1 Area
Multiple People Killed in A66 Collision Near Middlesbrough Involving Police Vehicle
×