Johnson’s ‘Macho’ Team Broke Covid Rules Daily, Ex-Official Says
(Bloomberg) -- Pandemic rules were broken on a daily basis in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street offices, where the former prime minister’s top team oversaw a “toxic” and “macho” culture that ignored women’s perspectives, a former senior civil servant told the UK’s official inquiry.
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The testimony from Helen MacNamara, who was deputy cabinet secretary, further underscored the chaos at the heart of government in 2020 and 2021. The revelations could be damaging for the Conservative Party as premier Rishi Sunak battles low poll ratings ahead of a general election expected next year.
Read more: UK Covid Inquiry Drags Sunak Back Into Boris Johnson’s Mess
“I would find it hard to pick one day when the regulations were followed properly inside that building,” MacNamara said Wednesday. That became clear when one Cabinet meeting was held with strict adherence to the guidance and “everybody moaned about it and tried to change it repeatedly,” she said.
Hundreds of officials, as well as some ministers, now think they broke the rules, she said. Both Johnson and Sunak were fined by police for breaching the regulations they helped to write, and the inquiry risks putting the sensitive “Partygate” issue firmly back in the public spotlight. MacNamara was also fined for attending one event at the time.
She was asked about a WhatsApp exchange between Johnson and his former senior aide Dominic Cummings — revealed to the inquiry on Tuesday — in which Cummings used a highly offensive term to describe MacNamara and said he would “personally handcuff her and escort her from the building.”
“It’s disappointing to me that the prime minister didn’t pick him up on some of that violent and misogynistic language,” she said. “It wasn’t a pleasant place to work.”
Women in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office were not listened to during crucial sessions on Covid policy and reported feeling as if they had “become invisible overnight,” MacNamara said. “The female perspective was being missed in advice and decision-making.”
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