Michael Gove warned ‘we’re f***ing up as a government’ in the early days of Covid as official inquiry is shown WhatsApp messages he sent to Dom Cummings discussing who ‘should be shot’ over failure to tackle pandemic

Michael Gove warned ‘we are ‘f**king up as a Government’ and missing ‘golden opportunities’ to get a grip on the spread of Covid in the early days of the pandemic, the official inquiry was told today.

The senior Cabinet minister sent a series of expletive-laden messages to Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Dominic Cummings voicing his concern at the slow pace of action to limit transmission in March 2020.

In WhatsApp messages shown to the official inquiry today as Mr Gove gave evidence, they discussed the poor performance of the Cabinet Office, the part of government tasked with preparation for major disasters.

In one exchange on March 11, Mr Cummings said that people should be shot’, to which Mr Gove replied: ‘Who did you envisage first in line?’

In his evidence Mr Gove attacked ‘dysfunction’ at the Cabinet Office and admitted the Government had been too late in locking down the UK.

But he defended Boris Johnson’s slow pace of decision-making, saying the then PM’s ‘principled attachment to maximising individual liberty’ meant it was ‘difficult for him to contemplate something like this’. 

The senior Cabinet minister sent a series of expletive-laden messages to Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Dominic Cummings voicing his concern at the slow pace of action to limit transmission in March 2020. 

In WhatsApp messages shown to the official inquiry today as Mr Gove gave evidence, they discussed the poor performance of the Cabinet Office, the part of government tasked with preparation for major disasters.

In one exchange on March 11, Mr Cummings said that people should be shot’, to which Mr Gove replied: ‘Who did you envisage first in line?’

The senior Tory said officials like himself who believed the Government should have acted earlier had a responsibility to point out to the then-prime minister the need for action.

‘I don’t think that one can single out the prime minister at the time for criticism. We all deserve our share retrospectively of criticism.’

Quoting Mr Gove from evidence dated March 4, Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, said: ‘You know me, I don’t often kick off but we’re f***ing up as a government and missing golden opportunities.

‘I will carry on doing what I can but the whole situation is even worse than you think and action needs to be taken or we will regret it for a long time.’

When asked to expand on his comments, Mr Gove said at the time he was concerned about the ‘ability and structure’ of the Cabinet Office to deliver Government’s priorities.

He added: ‘Covid was on my mind, but it wasn’t the principal thing that I was messaging about.

‘It was about the Cabinet Office overall, including its ability to deal with Covid.’

He then apologised for his language and added that the ‘weaknesses’ in operations at the Cabinet Office, which he had recently taken on responsibility for, would be further exposed by Covid-19.

The Levelling Up Secretary, who has held a number of prominent roles in Government, also told the inquiry that the Cabinet Office was ‘flawed’ and not effective at dealing with crises.

‘The Cabinet Office in and of itself, over many years, has operated in a way which is not as effective as it should be for the effective delivery of Government policy, both business as usual, and also in response to crises.’

Successive prime ministers have added responsibilities to the Cabinet Office’s plate that do not fit easily elsewhere, Mr Gove said.

‘So, it becomes a sort of Mary Poppins bag into which different prime ministers will shove things that they believe require to be dealt with by the Government’s nanny, as it were.’

Mr Gove also defended the conduct of No10 officials during the Covid pandemic today as he hit back at claims they acted like ‘wild animals’.

He told the Covid Inquiry there has been ‘strong views, sometimes punchily expressed’ under Boris Johnson’s leadership.

But he said that the nature of politics meant there would never be a ‘perfect’ set up, and added that ‘strong personalities’ had been needed to get Brexit done.

It came after messages between Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, and predecessor Sir Mark Sedwill in July 2020, braded the operation ‘poisonous’, ‘mad’ and unfit to run the country, with Mr Case adding: ‘I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country.’

Mr Gove was today questioned by lead counsel to the Covid-19 Inquiry Hugo Keith KC about a message by Mr Case saying working with Mr Johnson’s team was like ‘taming wild animals’. 

‘You’re never going to get a perfect team of personalities, all of whom are beautifully aligned and amongst whom there is perfect harmony,’ he replied.

‘You will always have – it’s in the nature of politics – strong views, sometimes punchily expressed.

It came after messages between Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, and predecessor Sir Mark Sedwill in July 2020, braded the operation ‘poisonous’, ‘mad’ and unfit to run the country, with Mr Case adding: ‘I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country.’ 

Mr Gove was today questioned by lead counsel to the Covid-19 Inquiry Hugo Keith KC about a message by Mr Case saying working with Mr Johnson’s team was like ‘taming wild animals’.

‘The nature of decision-making in any organisation under pressure means that people do sometimes need to be a little bit direct.’

He added they had been central to winning the 2019 election and clearing the Parliamentary ‘logjam’ around Brexit.

Mr Gove used his appearance to apologise to victims and bereaved families for Government ‘errors’ during the pandemic.

The senior Tory, who was Cabinet Office minister and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when the pandemic began in 2020, said he took some responsibility for the ‘mistakes’ made at the top level of politics when the crisis unfolded.

Giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry on Tuesday, Mr Gove said: ‘If I may… apologise to the victims who endured such pain, the families who endured so much loss as a result of the mistakes that were made by Government in response to the pandemic.

‘As a minister responsible for the Cabinet Office, and was also close to many of the decisions that were made, I must take my share of responsibility for that.

‘Politicians are human beings. We’re fallible. We make mistakes and we make errors. I am sure that the inquiry will have an opportunity to look in detail at many of the errors I and others made.’

But the Cabinet minister went on to defend his conduct and that of Cabinet Office staff, saying there were no easy decisions to be made at the time.

‘I want to stress that I and those with whom I worked were also seeking at every point, in circumstances where every decision was difficult and every course was bad, to make decisions that we felt we could in order to try to deal with an unprecedented virus and a remarkable assault on the institutions of the country.’

Mr Gove also gave evidence to the inquiry’s first module examining the country’s preparedness for a pandemic, when he said that planning for a no-deal Brexit made the UK ‘more match-fit’ to respond to Covid.

Former deputy chief medical officer Professor Dame Jenny Harries is also due to give evidence later on Tuesday.

Later this week, Lady Hallett’s probe will also take evidence from former health secretary Matt Hancock and ex-deputy prime minister Dominic Raab.

The inquiry is taking evidence as part of its second module on core UK decision-making and political governance.

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