Cummings vs MacNamara: the backstage clash at the heart of the UK’s Covid response

Boris Johnson's chief adviser and senior civil servant traded blows at the pandemic inquiry last week, describing horrifying levels of government chaos. The irony was how often their assessments agreed

The Covid inquiry is scheduled, unfathomably, to have three more years to run. But already one thing seems clear: there will be no more compelling or instructive evidence than that given last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Dominic Cummings and Helen MacNamara, who appeared on successive days, will be for ever linked in the proceedings by the hideous WhatsApp message Cummings sent about his former colleague to the prime minister, demanding her removal from the building in handcuffs" if necessary: We cannot keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging stilettos from that cunt." Though that toxic message provided easy headlines, it was MacNamara, quietly upstaging her nemesis, who had the last word.