Boris is roasted by his one-time best buddy

Boris will survive the roasting he got from Dominic Cummings speaking to the parliamentary committee today. But it's worth considerng the fact that here we have an unelected official or I should say unelected former official in 10 Downing Street who is lauding it over everyone and giving his view that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, should have been fired a long time ago and that Boris should never have been prime minister. That sort of damning chatter is fine in the local pub, although a bit tedious, but appearing before an august televised parliamentary committee, suddenly his views and judgments are given god-like respect as if he is the only person in the land who is blessed with omniscience and foresight and brilliance. He was all mucked in with the Downing Street lot, so if he was so all-knowing, how come he is blurting it all out now. I am quite sure that with hindsight there were a huge number of mistakes made. We know most of them, like the millions wasted on dodgy protective gear, the failing track and trace system, the appalling decision to allow untested Covid patients transfer from hospitals to care homes and the delays in taking action in stopping people coming to the UK from high-risk countries. But Cummings in his endless answers today seemed to be trying to give the impression that he and only he knew how to handle the pandemic and that everyone else was getting in the way and making the wrong decisions, especially Matt Hancock. The truth is that no one in any country in the world was fully cognisant of what to do when Covid-19 first arrived. It took the World Health Organisation ages to even describe it as a pandemic. Trump dismissed it. Boris certainly took his time to take it seriously. But there were so many conflicting views around the world that it's hardly surprising the UK government waited until it was absolutely necessary to order a lockdown. The UK was not alone. Locking the whole country down was such a huge decision. There are still people who think it was the wrong thing to do. Sweden didn't lock down and for a few weeks we all envied them their freedom. But the Swedes were wrong. The infections rose and rose. The most scandalous errors and bad decision-making have been in India by Prime Minister Modi. More than 300,000 dead - and climbing - because of the total failures of leadership and strategy. So, yes, Boris made mistakes but whatever Cummings says, I don't believe that he took any decision that deliberately put peoples' lives at risk. If and when the UK opens its doors to normality again on June 21, Cummings will be forgotten.