Dominic Cummings’ appearance before the science and technology select committee was full of new-found contrition and a good deal of hindsight over his and the government’s response to the beginning of the covid pandemic in the first few months of 2020.

Among his many revelations, Cummings told the committee: “We should have locked down on 1 March at the very latest. I personally bitterly regret that it wasn’t until 11 or 12 March that I started to do that.”

Labour leader Keir Starmer has often been labelled as Captain Hindsight by Boris Johnson. Yet here was the prime minister’s former special adviser giving a masterclass in it.