Former senior adviser to the prime minister, Dominic Cummings, has revealed the shocking scale of government incompetence in the lead up to the covid pandemic.

Speaking to the parliamentary science and technology committee, Cummings gave details of how senior officials were skiing in the weeks leading up to lockdown, were treating the virus as chickenpox and that Boris Johnson’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, was preoccupied with a story about her dog.

Perhaps most shockingly, Cummings said that health secretary Matt Hancock had lied both publicly and to the Cabinet Office several times and should’ve been sacked for “at least 15, 20 things”.