In praise of Matt Hancock, secretary of state for the ‘smoking ruin’

Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former adviser, criticised the health department as a ‘disaster zone’ – but, says John Rentoul, the minister in charge of it has been impressive

Cummings was notably absent from Hancock’s vaccine thank-you list (UK Parliament)

Matt Hancock has shown he can fight back. Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former adviser, accused him yesterday of presiding over a department that is a “smoking ruin”.

Anonymous sources responded on his behalf to Politico this morning, saying of Cummings: “He typifies everything the public hate about politicians. He … claims credit he doesn’t deserve and plays stupid political games when we are still in the middle of a pandemic. Perhaps the prime minister’s poll bounce is less to do with the vaccine effect and more to do with Cummings not being there any more.” A second source added: “Some recollections may vary.”

The crucial recollection of the first source is that Cummings’s allies in No 10 suggested to journalists in the early stages of the emergency that Hancock “was obsessing over the vaccine when actually mass testing was the most important thing”. Yesterday, Cummings told the Science and Technology Committee a different story: that he was central to the early decisions that made the vaccine rollout a success.