This week at the COVID inquiry is about the advisers – the backroom officials now thrust into the spotlight.
They reveal new details of the chaotic decision-making in Number 10 – and more widely across government – and extremely candid assessments of the key players, but particularly Boris Johnson.
Today, Martin Reynolds, a close Johnson ally from his time at the foreign office who went to work as his principal private secretary, conceded that the former prime minister “blew hot and cold” on lockdown.
He insisted this was because of the momentous nature of the decisions. Messages from Simon Case, the most senior civil servant in government, are less charitable.
In one newly-released WhatsApp from late 2020, he says of Mr Johnson: “I’m at the end of my tether. He changes strategic direction every day.
“Monday, we were all about fear of virus returning as per Europe… today we were in ‘let it rip’ mode cos the UK is pathetic. He cannot lead and we cannot support him leading with this approach.”
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In another message, he called the government a “terrible, tragic joke”.
Lee Cain, Johnson’s former director of communications, signalled his agreement with an emoji of a trolley – their nickname for the prime minister given his tendency, in their view, to veer from one side to another.
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Image: Lee Cain used a trolley emoji in reference to his nickname for Mr Johnson
Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser, described the prime minister in his diaries as “weak and indecisive” and constantly “flip-flopping”.
Later we heard from Imran Shafi, who worked in Number 10 advising the prime minister on public services.
He revealed a hand-scrawled note from a discussion between Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak in March 2020 which read: “We’re killing the patient to tackle the tumour… Why are we destroying economy for people who will die soon anyway?”
Asked who expressed these views, he said he thought it was Mr Johnson.
It would tally with claims that he talked to aides of letting the “bodies pile high” rather than allowing a second lockdown.
Dominic Cummings, once Mr Johnson’s closest ally but now his sworn enemy, told MPs he’d heard the former prime minister say it.
Mr Johnson and other senior politicians will be called by the inquiry by the end of this year.
Image: Dominic Cummings with his former ally Boris Johnson
Despite a court ruling that he must hand over WhatsApp messages from his old phone, used before April 2021, this process is not yet complete.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “Boris Johnson is cooperating fully with the inquiry”.
Tomorrow, Mr Cummings, who has already spoken extensively on this, will be in front of the inquiry – no doubt to inflict further damage on his old nemesis.
And questions are also building up for Mr Sunak, who declared himself, while running for the Conservative leadership last year, to be sceptical of the lockdown.
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On Wednesday, Helen McNamara, the cabinet office official who called Sunak “Dr Death”, will give evidence.
And today, it was revealed that the cut-price meal scheme he championed as chancellor was dubbed “Eat Out to Help the Virus” by chief medical officer Chris Whitty.
For the current and former prime ministers, there could be plenty more unwelcome surprises.
Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, recently said that he expects a crypto market bill to be passed into law by August 2025.
The chairman also noted the Senate Banking Committee’s advancement of the GENIUS Act, a comprehensive stablecoin regulatory bill, in March 2025, as evidence that the committee prioritizes crypto policy. In a statement to Fox News, Scott said:
“We must innovate before we regulate — allowing innovation in the digital asset space to happen here at home is critical to American economic dominance across the globe.”
Scott’s timeline for a crypto market structure bill lines up with expectations from Kristin Smith, CEO of the crypto industry advocacy group Blockchain Association, of market structure and stablecoin legislation being passed into law by August.
Support for comprehensive crypto regulations is bipartisan
US lawmakers and officials expect clear crypto policies to be established and signed into law sometime in 2025 with bipartisan support from Congress.
Speaking at the Digital Assets Summit in New York City, on March 18, Democrat Representative Ro Khanna said he expects both the market structure and stablecoin bills to pass this year.
The Democrat lawmaker added that there are about 70-80 other representatives in the party who understand the importance of passing clear digital asset regulations in the United States.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, pictured left, President Donald Trump in the center, and crypto czar David Sacks, pictured right, at the White House Crypto Summit. Source: The White House
Khanna emphasized that fellow Democrats support dollar-pegged stablecoins due to the role of dollar tokens in expanding demand for the US dollar worldwide through the internet.
Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, also spoke at the conference and predicted that stablecoin legislation would be passed into law within 60 days.
Hines highlighted that establishing US dominance in the digital asset space is a goal with widespread bipartisan support in Washington DC.
The US Social Security Administration (SSA) will move all public communications to the X social media platform amid sweeping workforce cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by X owner Elon Musk.
According to anonymous sources who spoke with WIRED, the government agency will no longer issue its customary letters and press releases to communicate changes to the public, instead relying on X as its primary form of public-facing communication.
The shift comes as the SSA downsizes its workforce from 57,000 employees to roughly 50,000 to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency. The agency issued this statement in February 2025:
“SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices, which is no longer sustainable. The agency will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions. The organizational structure at Headquarters also is outdated and inefficient.”
Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, has accused the Social Security system of distributing billions of dollars in wrongful payments, a claim echoed by the White House. Musk’s comments sparked intense debate about the future of the retirement program and sustainable government spending.
DOGE targets US government agencies in efficiency push
The Department of Government Efficiency is an unofficial government agency tasked with identifying and curbing allegedly wasteful public spending through budget and personnel cuts.
SEC officials signaled their cooperation with DOGE and said the regulatory agency would work closely with it to provide any relevant information requested.
Musk and Trump discuss curbing public spending and eliminating government waste. Source: The White house
DOGE also proposed slashing the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) workforce by 20%. The workforce reduction could impact up to 6,800 IRS employees and be implemented by May 15 — exactly one month after 2024 federal taxes are due.
Musk’s and the DOGE’s proposals for sweeping spending cuts are not limited to slashing budgets and reducing the size of the federal workforce.
DOGE is reportedly exploring blockchain to curb public spending by placing the entire government budget onchain to promote accountability and transparency.
United States President Donald Trump has exempted an array of tech products including, smartphones, chips, computers, and select electronics from tariffs, giving the tech industry a much-needed respite from trade pressures.
According to the US Customs and Border Protection, storage cards, modems, diodes, semiconductors, and other electronics were also excluded from the ongoing trade tariffs.
“Large-cap technology companies will ultimately come out ahead when this is all said and done,” The Kobeissi letter wrote in an April 12 X post.
The tariff relief will take the pressure off of tech stocks, which were one of the biggest casualties of the trade war. Crypto markets are correlated with tech stocks and could also rally as risk appetite increases on positive trade war headlines.
Following news of the tariff exemptions, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) broke past $85,000 on April 12, a signal that crypto markets are already responding to the latest macroeconomic development.
Markets hinge on Trump’s every word during macroeconomic uncertainty
President Trump walked back the sweeping tariff policies on April 9 by initiating a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs and lowering tariff rates to 10% for countries that did not respond with counter-tariffs on US goods.
Bitcoin surged by 9% and the S&P 500 surged by over 10% on the same day that Trump issued the tariff pause.
Macroeconomic trader Raoul Pal said the tariff policies were a negotiation tool to establish a US-China trade deal and characterized the US administration’s trade rhetoric as “posturing.”
Bitcoin advocate Max Keiser argued that exempting select tech products from import tariffs would not reduce bond yields or further the Trump administration’s goal of lowering interest rates.
Yield on the 10-year US government bond spikes following sweeping trade policies from the Trump administration. Source: TradingView
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury Bond shot up to a local high of approximately 4.5% on April 11 as bond investors reacted to the macroeconomic uncertainty of a protracted trade war.
“The concession just given to China for tech exports won’t reverse the trend of rates going higher. Confidence in US bonds and the US Dollar has been eroding for years and won’t stop now,” Keiser wrote on April 12.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.