Cummings claims foul-mouthed messages about colleague were not misogynistic, saying he was "much ruder about men" Keith asks Cummings if he contributed to the atmosphere of contempt and misogyny in No 10 that was identified in an internal report. Extracts from this were published yesterday. “Certainly not,” says Cummings. Keith then presents some messages from Cummings referring to Helen McNamara, the deputy cabinet secretary. In this one Cummings says he is in a “homicidal” mood and wants to go back to No 10 and fire some people. In this one, Cummings says he would like to handcuff McNamara and remove her from the building, because they cannot keep ‘“dodging stilettos from that cunt”. And in this one, he describes moving her to the communities department, where she can build “millions of lovely houses”. Cummings accepts that his language was “obviously appalling”. But he claims he “got on well at a personal level” with McNamara. He says there were structural reasons why he wanted her moved. Keith says Cummings was clearly misogynistic. Cummings does not accept this. He says he was “much ruder about men”, and he says he used similar language, or worse, about the PM. We are now closing the blog. Here is a summary of today’s events. The UK Covid inquiry heard from the former prime minister’s top aide Dominic Cummings, and Lee Cain, the former Downing Street director of communications. We were told that: Boris Johnson suggested “Covid is nature’s way of dealing with old people”, according to Sir Patrick Vallance. Dominic Cummings said vulnerable people were “appallingly neglected”. Cummings frequently called for the sacking of Matt Hancock and other cabinet ministers. Cummings used misogynistic language to denigrate the deputy cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara. But he claimed foul-mouthed messages about his colleague were not misogynistic, saying he was “much ruder about men”. Johnson urged Cummings to end an “orgy of narcissism”. Cummings was unrepentant about his trip to Durham at the height of lockdown. Cummings said Johnson’s relationship with the press was “extremely damaging” to the government’s Covid response. Cummings defended helping to make Johnson PM even though he thought he was unfit to handle the pandemic. Cummings claimed he told Johnson in early February containing Covid was impossible - but accepted there’s no written record of this. Cummings said the UK could have avoided lockdown if massive test and trace capacity had been in place by March 2020. Cain tried to resist Sunak’s “eat out to help out” scheme in the summer of 2020. Cain said it was a “huge blunder” to ignore Marcus Rashford’s campaign on free school meals. Susie Flintham, a spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said there was “nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic”. Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said she has “nothing to hide” as 14,000 messages to be handed over to the UK Covid inquiry. Rail ticket office closures in England have been scrapped in a government U-turn Gillian Keegan says she hopes much-delayed trans guidance for schools in England to be out before Christmas. English councils seek £100m to avert collapse of homelessness services. Rishi Sunak spoke with the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas telling him the UK will continue to support diplomatic action to protect Palestinian civilians. Rishi Sunak also spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu about the importance of minimising civilian casualties. Human rights campaign group Amnesty International was among several organisations that were critical of Keir Starmer’s stance on the conflict in Gaza, following a speech the Labour leader gave today. ‘Nastiness, arrogance and misogyny’ of UK government exposed at Covid inquiry A toxic culture of government incompetence, backstabbing and misogyny was laid bare at the Covid public inquiry on Tuesday with messages revealing Boris Johnson’s dismissive attitude to millions of old people at risk from the virus. The former prime minister’s top aide Dominic Cummings was accused of “aggressive, foul-mouthed and misogynistic” abuse after messages showed he tried to sack top civil servant Helen MacNamara saying No 10 was “dodging stilettos from that cunt”. Johnson’s chaotic indecisiveness delayed lockdown measures, the inquiry heard, while he had told senior advisers the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and he was “no longer buying” the fact the NHS was overwhelmed during the pandemic. Bereaved relatives reacted to the fresh evidence with horror after a bruising session of the Covid inquiry, with Cummings and Lee Cain, the former No 10 director of communications, questioning Johnson’s suitability for leading the country during the pandemic. Susie Flintham, a spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said: “The nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic is core to the awful decision making that led to thousands of unnecessary deaths and tore families like mine apart. When you see that these figures had such a shocking disregard for each other, you can only imagine the disregard they had for families like mine.” Sunak tells president Abbas the UK will continue to support diplomatic action to protect Palestinian civilians Rishi Sunak spoke to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, earlier today, PA News reports. A Downing Street spokesperson said: The leaders discussed the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, and the prime minister once again expressed his deep condolences for the tragic loss of civilian life. The prime minister set out the intensive diplomatic and practical efforts the United Kingdom is making to rapidly increase the delivery of life-saving aid to Gaza, following the announcement that the UK will double aid funding for Palestinian civilians. President Abbas thanked the prime minister for his active engagement in the region. President Abbas also updated on the security situation in the West Bank. The prime minister emphasised the importance of making progress on the peace process to ensure that Palestinian civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank can live in security and prosperity. He said the UK would continue to support diplomatic action to protect Palestinian civilians, prevent wider escalation and secure a peaceful and lasting resolution to the crisis. More reaction is coming to us on the speech Keir Starmer gave earlier today. A spokesperson for Caabu (Council for Arab-British Understanding) said it was “disappointing” that Starmer and the UK government have “continued to rebuff this vital humanitarian call”. The full statement is here: Keir Starmer in his speech today at Chatham House once again referred to meeting he had with agencies involved with Gaza. Caabu was one of the agencies present at that meeting. Every single agency referenced the urgent need for a ceasefire. It was the united position of all the organisations, as it is also of Unicef, UNRWA, and the UN secretary general that a ceasefire is essential to saving lives and allowing aid to flow. It is deeply disappointing that Keir Starmer, along with the UK government, has continued to rebuff this vital humanitarian call. Aid cannot be delivered under fire, and the catastrophic conditions facing 2.3 million Palestinian civilians who are on the brink of dying of thirst, hunger and disease if not the bombs, cannot be addressed merely by a pause. Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK criticise "nastiness" at heart of government pandemic decision making Susie Flintham, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK has criticised the “nastiness” at the heart of the government’s “awful” pandemic decision making. She said: The nastiness, arrogance and misogyny at the heart of government during the pandemic is core to the awful decision making that led to thousands of unnecessary deaths and tore families like mine apart. When you see that these figures had such a shocking disregard for each other, you can only imagine the disregard they had for families like mine. Sturgeon says she has "nothing to hide" as 14,000 messages to be handed over to UK Covid inquiry Here’s more from former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. She told journalists in Holyrood she has “nothing to hide” under questioning about her WhatsApps, as 14,000 messages are set to be disclosed to the UK Covid-19 inquiry. Press reports over the weekend suggested Sturgeon’s messages from the time of the pandemic had been deleted and the now-backbench MSP said she acted in line with Scottish government policy on informal messaging. The policy, which was published on Wednesday, said “business conversations” through informal messaging channels should be deleted “at least monthly” after any decisions had been noted in the government’s record management system. Sturgeon said: I did not manage the Covid response by WhatsApp. She told reporters at Holyrood, she was not a member of any WhatsApp groups and she took decisions on the response at the Scottish government headquarters at St Andrews House in Edinburgh. She said: I have nothing to hide – I am committed to full transparency to this inquiry and to the Scottish inquiry when it takes place, and I’m committed to that in the interests of everybody across this country who was affected by Covid. English councils seek £100m to avert collapse of homelessness services Council leaders have urged Jeremy Hunt to intervene to prevent the collapse of local homelessness services because of the soaring costs of providing emergency housing for evicted families. A letter signed by a cross-party group of local authority leaders in England indicates that some town halls in effect face bankruptcy and describes mounting temporary housing bills for homeless households as a “critical risk to the financial sustainability of many local authorities”. It calls for an immediate cash injection of £100m for councils to provide emergency rent support for families at risk of homelessness, together with an end to the four-year freeze on housing allowance rates and long-term investment in social housing. Sunak tells Netanyahu the importance of minimising civilian casualties Rishi Sunak told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of the importance of taking “all possible measures to minimise civilian casualties” in a phone call on Tuesday. A Downing Street spokesperson said the two men spoke this afternoon adding: The prime minister stressed the importance of rapidly increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and welcomed Israel’s commitment to facilitate significantly more deliveries. He said the UK would support all efforts to ensure life-saving aid reaches those in need, including temporary humanitarian pauses. The prime minister reiterated the UK’s resolute backing for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, while emphasising the importance of taking all possible measures to minimise civilian casualties. He said the UK is focused on securing the safe return of hostages and urgently ensuring British nationals and others can leave Gaza, via the Rafah crossing or other routes. The leaders also discussed the situation in the West Bank and the long-term goal of a two-state solution. The prime minister noted the importance of all sides avoiding actions that would inflame tensions and keeping hope alive for a more secure and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians. MSPs at Holyrood have passed a motion welcoming the publication of the Scottish government’s rural and islands housing action plan. The motion, passed by 69 votes to 53, highlighted the government’s ambition to deliver 110,000 affordable homes across Scotland, with 10% of these to be located in rural and island areas. A Conservative amendment that noted that 17% of Scotland’s population live in these areas was defeated by 55 votes to 65, PA News reports. A Labour amendment, calling for an interim target of having 5,500 houses completed in rural areas by 2026, was also rejected by 22 votes to 96, with three abstentions. Oxfam has also been critical of Keir Starmer’s speech. Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfam’s head of advocacy, said: A ceasefire is essential to saving lives and allowing aid to flow – to pretend otherwise isn’t credible. It is deeply disappointing that the leader of the opposition and the UK government have continued to rebuff this vital humanitarian call. It matters what these leaders say, not least for ordinary Gazan people who need to know the world is listening to their pleas. Without a ceasefire, any relief for millions of people trapped in Gaza will inevitably be wholly insufficient and many more civilians will die needlessly. The human rights campaign group Amnesty International has criticised Keir Starmer’s stance on the conflict in Gaza. Referring to the Labour leader’s speech from earlier today, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said: In failing to call for an immediate ceasefire, Keir Starmer is not showing the clear and principled leadership that this decades-old crisis needs. Deshmukh said a negotiated ceasefire “would mean a stop to all unlawful attacks by all parties, provide an opportunity for negotiation for the releases of hostages, halt the mounting death toll and enable aid agencies to get life-critical aid, water and medical supplies into Gaza”. He added it was “deeply disappointing” that Starmer “did not use this moment to be clear that under his leadership the UK would be consistent and rigorous in supporting international law”. “The Labour leader is right to denounce the war crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on and after 7 October, but his unwillingness to denounce the many years of actions by Israel in Gaza is only serving to prolong this crisis,” he said. A large increase in students forced to resit maths and English GCSE exams is putting colleges under “enormous pressure” and harming recruitment to the government’s new T-level courses, the Association of Colleges (AoC) has told the education secretary, Gillian Keegan. In an open letter to Keegan, the AoC chief executive, David Hughes, said colleges in England were seeing a 30% increase in the number of 17-year-olds having to resit their GCSEs as required by government policy, leading to shortages of teachers and classroom space. Hughes added: The numbers starting T-levels is disappointing and falling short of your ambitions and plans. A large part of this is that many potential T-level students did not achieve good GCSEs and are therefore not ready. Hughes asks Keegan for the Department for Education’s plans to promote T-levels “to parents, employers and students, particularly now that the Advanced British Standard has been announced”. The ABS, unveiled by Rishi Sunak at the Conservative party conference, is said to combine A-levels and T-levels but details remain vague. Nicola Sturgeon has said she “gave my all” in the response to the pandemic. Addressing journalists at Holyrood on whether she deleted WhatsApp messages relating to the pandemic, the former first minister said: “Transparency for the families affected, by everybody affected by the pandemic, matters really a lot to me. “I did my best every day, as you heard me say many times over the course of the pandemic, I did not get everything right but I did my best and I want the process of these inquiries to get to the heart of what happened – the things that governments got right and the things that governments and leaders alike didn’t get right.” During the Covid inquiry hearing this afternoon WhatsApp messages were shown from Dominic Cummings illustrating how critical he was of Matt Hancock, the health secretary. In one message sent in May 2020, Cummings wrote to Boris Johnson: You need to think through timing of binning Hancock. There’s no way the guy can stay. He’s lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it. He will have to go the question is when and who replaces. And in another message in August 2020, Cummings said: I also must stress I think leaving Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or [should] believe on anything, and we face going into autumn crisis with the cunt in charge of NHS still. That’s all from me for today. My colleague Jane Clinton is taking over now. Scottish government says it will share 14,000 WhatsApp messages with Covid inquiry The Scottish government is to share more than 14,000 messages with the UK Covid-19 inquiry – with the first minister, Humza Yousaf, to hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages, PA Media reports. PA says: In a statement at Holyrood, Scottish deputy first minister Shona Robison confirmed the Scottish government had received a legal notice permitting it to hand over the messages on Monday. Messages, including those from Scottish government ministers and former ministers, are included in that, Robison said. The first minister, when submitting a statement to the UK Covid-19 inquiry in the coming days, will “hand over WhatsApp messages unredacted to the inquiry”, she added. The deputy first minister said a legal order, known as a section 21 notice, had been required before the messages could be handed over because “a number of them were of a particularly personal nature, including photos of individuals’ children and personal medical details”. With the order now received, Robison told MSPs at Holyrood that work was “well under way” to ensure the messages would be handed over by the deadline set by the inquiry. The deputy first minister added: “This will mean that all requested messages held will be shared, in full and unredacted, by 6 November.” She said the Scottish government would “share over 14,000 mainly WhatsApp messages from various groups and individuals over the period of the pandemic”. After Hugo Keith KC finished his questioning, counsel for some of the other core participants were given time to put a few questions to Dominic Cummings. Samuel Jacobs, counsel for the TUC, asks if Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was blocking moves to pay people who needed to stay at home to isolate. Cummings says he did not know Sunak’s personal view on this. But he said the Treasury was institutionally opposed to this. He says other countries, like Singapore and Korea, seemed to handle this better. Q: Why do you think there was no interest in the system in addressing this? Cummings says people in the system were addressing this. Q: Why did ministers not accept the idea? Cummings says he does not know. Heather Hallett, the chair, says that is the end of the session. Cummings gets the final word, apologising again for his “terrible language”. Cummings defends lockdown-busting trip to Durham, but says No 10 handling of media row was "disaster" Keith ended by asking Cummings about the Barnard Castle affair, when Cummings took his family from London to his parents’ home in County Durham when the country was in lockdown, and trips like this were supposed to be banned. Cummings also drove his family to Barnard Castle to “test his eyesight” before driving back to London. Cummings claimed there were security reasons why he needed to leave London. Asked why he needed his family in the car on the trip to test his eyesight, he conceded they did not need to be there. Asked if he accepted that he caused huge offence, Cummings defended his decision to move his family out of London for a time. But he said the way No 10 handled the story was “an absolute car crash”. He said: It was certainly a disaster, the whole handling of the situation. But there were other factors involved with it all as well – testing and PPE and many other things were all going haywire at the time … In terms of my actual actions in going north and then coming back down I acted entirely reasonably and legally and did not break any rules. Keith ended by saying that Cummings left Downing Street on 13 November 2020 never to return. And he left No 10 in the control of someone he thought was unfit for office.