'Did Boris call Covid Kung-Flu?': Nick Ferrari puts Cummings' claims to Grant Shapps

26 May 2021, 08:41

'Did Boris Johnson ever refer to Covid as Kung-Flu?'

Nick Ferrari put a series of Dominic Cummings' claims to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, ahead of the former aide's appearance before ministers to answer questions on the early Covid response.

Watch LIVE: Dominic Cummings faces grilling by MPs over Covid-19 response

Boris Johnson's former chief adviser, who had a front seat to discussions about lockdown decisions, will give his account to a joint meeting of both the Science and Technology Select Committee and the Health and Social Care Select Committee.

The title is simple - 'Coronavirus: lessons learnt'.

His testimony is expected to be damning, and Cummings has already alluded to what he will say in front of MPs, including allegations the PM wanted to be infected with Covid live on TV 'to show it's nothing to be scared of', and also that he referred to Covid as 'Kung-Flu'.

The Transport Secretary vehemently denied all allegations against the Prime Minister, telling LBC's Nick Ferrari: "It’s a bit of a circus from someone who was there at the time and had the facility and ability to influence a lot of these decisions of course."

Iain Dale has a question Dominic Cummings should be asked

He added: "Look at what’s actually happened with the Government’s response to coronavirus with 73% of adults having been provided with the first vaccination, over 44% with the second vaccination, everybody entitled to two corona tests a week, half the world’s genome sequencing. 

"Those fantastic British firsts are a result of the decisions that the Prime Minister and others were making a year and more ago and that’s been the real outcome of decision that were made at time so I don’t think we need to worry about he said, she said."

He also denied Mr Johnson said "Covid is only killing 80-year-olds" amid reports Mr Cummings will allege the PM said this in a bid to delay the autumn lockdown.

"It's slightly odd that it was claimed that one of the other things the Prime Minister said we won't have further lockdowns, well that was supposedly in October. Since then we've had a November lockdown and a January lockdown which we're still coming out of," Mr Shapps said.

He encouraged the public to look at "what's actually happened and what we've actually done."