Magic Covid hairdryers, bizarre cricket analogies and an application for the position of Grim Reaper capped off what has been a worrisome week in the Covid inquiry.
Dominic Cummings, Lee Cain and Lord Simon Stevens were among those to give evidence to the inquiry in a bid to establish to what extent political negligence was to blame for the 223,396 coronavirus deaths in the UK.
And from what we have seen so far, the verdict doesn’t look like it will be a favourable one for the government.
A Trumpian moment for Johnson arose when Dominic Cummings claimed that the ex-PM had asked top scientists Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance if Covid could be destroyed by blowing a “special hair dryer” up noses.
Johnson allegedly sent a video of a man using such a purported device to the men serving as England’s chief scientific adviser and chief medical officer and asked what they thought.
Cummings also said Johnson asked him to find a “dead cat” to get the coronavirus pandemic off the front pages of newspapers because he was “sick” of it.
Helen MacNamara, who served as deputy cabinet secretary, had a less than complimentary recollection of Matt Hancock’s efforts during the pandemic.
She said the former health secretary displayed “nuclear levels” of overconfidence and a pattern of reassuring colleagues the pandemic was being dealt with in ways that were not true.
MacNamara said she witnessed a “jarring” episode where the then-health secretary adopted a cricket batsman’s stance in Downing Street.
“They bowl them at me, I knock them away,” he said confidently in one of the dark moments of the early pandemic, according to her testimony.
And if you think that’s bad, it’s got nothing on Lord Simon Stevens’ revelations.
The man who led NHS England until 2021 revealed that the ex-health secretary wanted to decide “who should live and who should die” if hospitals became overwhelmed by coronavirus patients.
In his witness statement to the inquiry, the peer said: “The secretary of state for health and social care took the position that in this situation he – rather than, say, the medical profession or the public – should ultimately decide who should live and who should die.
“Fortunately, this horrible dilemma never crystallised.”
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