DOWNING Street has played down the prospect of the Prime Minister carrying out a Cabinet reshuffle on the same day that his former aide gives evidence to MPs.
A senior minister reportedly told the BBC that Boris Johnson was planning a shake-up on Wednesday to distract from the appearance of his former chief advisor Dominic Cummings in front of a committee of MPs.
Cummings has been critical of the UK Government’s response to the pandemic.
READ MORE: Dominic Cummings reveals he has 'crucial' Covid paper in threat to Boris Johnson
On Wednesday he said he had “a crucial historical document” which would expose decision making surrounding the first lockdown that he would hand over to the Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee, to which he will give evidence next week.
However, Number 10 played down the suggestion of a reshuffle and the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said: “It’s not something that we would comment on.
“We don’t comment on such matters.”
Cummings, who left Downing Street in November after a behind-the-scenes power struggle, has called for a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.
He said the Covid plan was supposed to be “world class” but turned out to be “part disaster, part non-existent”. Ahead of his appearance before MPs, Cummings highlighted his concerns with the approach adopted in the early stages of the pandemic last year.
He wrote on Twitter: “One of the most fundamental & unarguable lessons of Feb-March is that secrecy contributed greatly to the catastrophe.
READ MORE: Twitter reacts in disbelief as Dominic Cummings sings praises of Covid lockdowns
“Openness to scrutiny would have exposed government errors weeks earlier than happened.”
He questioned why MPs were accepting the “lack of a public plan now” for the vaccines taskforce to respond to new variants.
“The best hedge re a variant escaping current vaccines is public scrutiny of government plans,” he wrote.
“This will hopefully show it’s been taken seriously.
“If not, better learn now that the Gvt has screwed up again than when ‘variant escapes’ news breaks.”
Cummings suggested the Government could make most vaccine plans public without risk as national security fears are “almost totally irrelevant to the critical parts of the problem”.
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