BBC and Sky scramble to make on-air apologies for broadcasting Dominic Cummings’ expletive-filled Covid inquiry appearance uncensored (but furious viewers blast them for saying sorry while ex-No10 aide gave evidence)

The BBC and Sky scrambled to make on-air apologies for broadcasting Dominic Cummings’ expletive-filled messages during his appearance at the Covid-19 Inquiry today.

The broadcasters chose not to censor the former No 10 aide’s foul-mouthed messages to then-prime minister Boris Johnson, including one in which he branded the Cabinet ‘useless f***pigs as he raged about Covid response.

He also described ministers as ‘c***s’ and ‘morons’ in extraordinary messages shown as he gave evidence to the inquiry – with lead counsel Hugo Keith KC branding his language ‘revolting’. 

Furious viewers have blasted the BBC and Sky for interrupting their coverage to issue warnings about the expletive language used while Cummings was giving his answers.

Those watching the inquiry on the BBC saw the on-screen message: ‘Warning: coverage may contain expletives.’

Dominic Cummings (pictured) slated ministers as ‘c***s’ and ‘morons’ in foul-mouthed messages shown as he gave evidence to the Covid inquiry

Dominic Cummings ranted at the PM in a series of missives as their relationship disintegrated, warning that the government was being consumed by ‘mayhem’

The Corporation said that while it would not normally broadcast the expletive language, they believe there is a ‘clear public interest in reporting the inquiry’s proceedings in full’.

After Cummings was sworn in after Boris Johnson’s long-term adviser Lee Cain, viewers were also told: ‘Just an apology to reiterate that there has been some very strong language, plenty of expletives, over the past couple of hours of coverage.’

‘This is as messages from those in between Number 10 were read out or have been read out, and that may well continue so apologies in advance, those are unedited and we don’t get any warning of those.’

READ MORE: Dominic Cummings slams Whitehall ‘fatalism’ about Covid spread claiming tougher borders and more testing could have avoided March 2020 lockdown 

Likewise, Sky News also had a message on screens which said: ‘Warning: Offensive language’. 

At the start of his evidence, lead counsel Mr Keith told Mr Cummings: ‘Due in large part to your own Whatsapps, Mr Cummings, we are going to have to coarsen our language somewhat.’ 

Mr Cummings replied: ‘I apologise.’

Mr Keith then exposed Mr Cummings’ messages, telling him: ‘You called ministers useless f***pigs, morons, c***s, in email and Whatapps to your professional colleagues.’

Although Mr Cummings admitted his language was ‘appalling’, he said he was  ‘reflecting a widespread view amongst competent people at the centre of power at the time about the calibre of a lot of senior people who were dealing with this crisis extremely badly.’ 

BBC viewers were told: ‘Just a reminder we are watching live unedited coverage of the Covid inquiry… There is more repeated expletives that we are hearing.

‘We are repeating our apology on behalf of what you can hear but it is not within our control, unfortunately, what is read out there.

‘Just a repeat of our apology that you are hearing some expletives and strong language.’

But viewers blasted the Corporation and Sky for continuously issuing apologies during a much-anticipated inquiry into the pandemic that brought the world to a standstill in March 2020.

The BBC and Sky News had warnings on their coverage as Cummings’ messages were read out

Furious viewers blasted Sky and BBC for constantly apologising for not censoring the foul language used in text messages from Dominic Cummings 

One X, formerly Twitter, user said: ‘Ffs would Sky and BBC let us listen to Cummings and stop clutching their pearls at every profanity.’

Another tweeted: ‘Watching the live streaming of the Covid inquiry on @SkyNews, I can’t believe that there are some delicate individuals who might be offended by expletives and need an apology. My message to them is get real in the context of 230,000 deaths in the UK!’

A third posted: ‘I wish the BBC would not keep apologising for the language being used on the Covid inquiry broadcast right after the “F-word” or “C-word” has been said.

‘Wait until an appropriate time when an answer isn’t being given by Dominic Cummings. They keep apologising over his answers.’

A fourth wrote: ‘If you must keep apologising please flash it on screen instead of keep interrupting we can’t hear the questions. We have heard swearing before believe me.’

Several others echoed the frustration, with another posting: ‘Covid Inquiry coverage on BBC News and Sky News is unwatchable because of the constant apologies for ‘bad language’.

One more user wrote: ‘Watching the Covid enquiry on BBC News where they break in to apologise for the bad language every few seconds because they are now reading out Dominic Cummings’ text messages.’

Others saw the funny side of the BBC airing such expletive language. The Corporation said it was in the public’s interest to do so

Other users saw the funny side of the uncensored coverage, with one tweeting: ‘Listening to and watching Dominic Cummings this afternoon and chuckling to myself at all the effing and jeffing and worse all over the BBC!!! Loving it!!!! #filth’.

Another posted: ‘Never heard so many utterances of f***ing c**** live in the afternoon on the BBC, uncensored.’ 

Once a close ally, Mr Cummings is now a sworn enemy of Mr Johnson, and slammed his ‘exhausting’ inability to stick to decisions, claiming that ‘pretty much everybody’ referred to Mr Johnson as ‘the trolley’.

Mr Cummings insisted that in retrospect the country could have dodged lockdown altogether if it had shut the borders with China in December 2019 and immediately brought in mass testing. But he said there was a ‘fatalistic’ view that the virus would spread, and ‘herd immunity’ was the ‘only plausible approach’.

He said Cabinet Office was a ‘dumpster fire’ with people in the wrong posts – but also admitted it was ‘crackers’ that someone like him had been in No10.

Earlier, former Downing Street spin chief Lee Cain told the government had no ‘clarity’ or ‘plan’ on how to deal with Covid.

Mr Cain defended the low priority given to the virus in No10 as it emerged in January and early February, saying that the Department of Health was confident preparations were in place.

But he conceded that by the end of February the situation was escalating and there was ‘no clarity of purpose’. ‘There was a lack of clarity about what we should be doing,’ Mr Cain said.

Mr Johnson has yet to give his own account to the inquiry. 

Mr Cummings was Mr Johnson’s top political aide in Downing Street from July 2019, having previously led Vote Leave in the Brexit referendum, and was credited with masterminding the Tories’ election triumph.

He was asked to leave government by Mr Johnson in November 2020, after seemingly losing a bitter power struggle. Mr Cain, another Vote Leave veteran, quit a day before.

Calling for a reshuffle, Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser said in a WhatsApp message in August 2020: ‘At the moment the bubble thinks youve taken your eye off ball, you’re happy to have useless f***pigs in charge, and they think that a vast amount of the chaotic news on the front pages is coming from no10 when in fact it’s coming from the Cabinet who are feral – if you maintain your approach of last few months, your authority will be severely weakened and you will lose good people cos (sic) they dont want to be part of something that looks like mayhem.’

Mr Cummings added: ‘I also must stress I think leaving Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or shd (sic) believe on anything, and we face going into autumn crisis with the c*** in charge of NHS still.’

Mr Keith said ‘we’re going to have to coarsen our language somewhat’, as he read out some of the terms used by Mr Cummings.

Asked by Mr Keith whether he contributed to a lack of effectiveness on the part of ministers, Mr Cummings replied: ‘No, I think I was reflecting a widespread view amongst competent people at the centre of power at the time about the calibre of a lot of senior people who were dealing with this crisis extremely badly.’

He conceded his language was ‘appalling’ and apologised, but said his ‘judgment of a lot of senior people was widespread’.

The inquiry was shown messages between Mr Cain and Mr Cummings saying they were ‘exhausted’ with the PM

Mr Johnson, pictured out running in Oxfordshire this morning, has yet to give his own account to the inquiry

The Covid inquiry is being chaired by Baroness Hallett (pictured at the hearing yesterday)

Mr Cummings said strict border controls on travel from China and the rapid expansion of testing as soon as the virus was identified could have had a ‘much better’ outcome than the national lockdown.

He said there was a ‘fatalistic’ approach within government which did not envisage attempting to create new systems to control the spread of coronavirus.

‘My view is that what ought to have happened is that as soon as the first reports came at the end of December, on roughly New Year’s Eve 2019, we should have immediately closed down flights to China, we should immediately have had a very, very hardcore system at the airports and borders and there should have been a whole massive testing infrastructure,’ he said.

That meant both scaling up the test and trace system but also finding the industrial capacity system to manufacture tens of millions of rapid tests.

The combination of ‘this country, for the first time ever, actually controlling its borders and taking it seriously’ with test and trace, rapid testing capacity, along with ‘human challenge’ vaccine trials, would have been a ‘much better approach’.

It would have been better ‘not just in terms of deaths, but also in terms of us being able to keep open the economy to a massively greater extent than we were able to’.

Mr Cummings agreed that without a scaled-up test and trace system, shutting the borders would not have sufficed in combating the spread of coronavirus.

But he said: ‘It’s half of the nub of the issue, but the other half of the nub is that if you regard the whole thing in a fatalistic way anyway – which DH (the Department of Health), the Cabinet Office and Sage did at the beginning – and you think that there is no effective alternative to herd immunity.

‘If you say that, at an overall conceptual level, there’s either A: shape a curve towards herd immunity, or B: try to build your way out of the problem, the entire system in January, February, early March thought that the only plausible approach to this was to shape the curve of herd immunity.

‘No one thought it was really practical to build our way out of the problem.

‘The fundamental U-turn that we shifted to, was to try and build our way out of it instead of fatalistically accepting it.’

He pointed to an episode when supermodel Caprice said on TV ‘why aren’t we closing the borders?’ – saying ‘a lot of public health experts mocked her as if she was an idiot’.

‘That was the prevailing conventional wisdom from the public health system and the dismissal of Caprice was reflected in Number 10 by the public health system,’ he said.

‘Of course, if you’re going for a single wave herd immunity by September… then faffing around at the borders wasn’t regarded as relevant or coherent with such a strategy.’

The BBC told MailOnline: ‘We mentioned earlier that some very strong language is being broadcast on the live feed from the inquiry as messages are read out in evidence.

‘This is because the lead counsel to the inquiry has decided that this evidence is pertinent to its aim of examining the UK’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and trying to learn lessons for the future.

‘The inquiry is chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, a former Court of Appeal judge.

‘While the BBC would not normally broadcast such strong language, we believe there is a clear public interest in reporting the inquiry’s proceedings in full.’

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