The COVID inquiry reveals a uniquely toxic, destructive set of individuals trying to work through a crisis

Published

1 year ago

October 31, 2023

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There is a danger on days like today of focusing on dazzling but smaller-scale revelations that have come out of today’s evidence at the COVID inquiry hearings.

This includes the eye-opening WhatsApps appearing on the courtroom screens, the biblical language about the cabinet and prime minister, the misogynist comments about officials, a prime minister on holiday left undisturbed at a critical time as the virus spread and the failings of individual politicians and government departments.

We saw Dominic Cummings blocking – digitally prevent communications with – the prime minister on WhatsApp after a row over the influence and alleged briefings by Boris Johnson’s wife.

Each one a vital, depressing component of what we’ve learnt today.

But what really hits you, listening to six hours of testimony, is the overall quantum of the dysfunction we heard about; first from Lee Cain, Mr Johnson’s director of communications, and then from Dominic Cummings, his most senior adviser, over the period from January 2020 until end of the emergency phase of the pandemic.

Behind the door of Number 10, Mr Johnson and officials were handling the worst crisis Britain had faced since the Second World War.

COVID inquiry latest: ‘I was much ruder about men’ – Dominic Cummings denies misogyny

At the time, a lot of people cut them some slack, hoping and praying they would get things right.

Perhaps everyone should not have been so tolerant.

The sheer scale of the feuding, contempt and dysfunction we’ve heard about today beggars belief.

There was no pandemic plan in March 2020, just people lying about there being a pandemic plan. In Number 10, they were told on 16 March that the civil contingencies secretariat did not even have these plans centrally. That message, Mr Cummings said, was such a shock that people thought it was a spoof.

There was a core, wrong-headed belief at the beginning of the pandemic in Number 10, where people believed Britain could never be locked down until 10 days before it was, based on a dogged, widespread misreading of the nature of the British people.

And we heard how the prime minister’s most senior adviser, Mr Cummings, was trying to keep him away from pandemic planning meetings, fearing he would be a distraction. A simply incredible thing to admit.

But more than anything else, we hear in different ways through different bits of testimony how Britain at that point had an unfocused, indecisive prime minister who at one point looked willing to write off an entire older generation for the sake of the young.

Yes, at points he resisted the Whitehall health “blob”, asking questions and challenging assumptions in a way few others were prepared to do – but often to little effect, outmanoeuvred by those around him.

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance wrote in one of his notebooks in August 2020 that Mr Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going”.

Quite bonkers set of exchanges. Another note from Sir Patrick in December 2020 said that the prime minister was suggesting that COVID “is just nature’s way of dealing with old people”.

Extraordinary remarks not least from a prime minister whose voting coalition depends on older voters at its core.

It should be no surprise that cabinet government in this country does not work effectively, or that 10 years into the Tories being in power, not every person around the top table is highly regarded by Tory colleagues.

Nor should it be a surprise that the structures in government to handle a pandemic were failing – secret exercises four years earlier in Whitehall ended in failure, and Brexit had distracted many for years.

The failings that led to the pandemic response have a long tail.

However, what we learnt from the COVID inquiry today was that layered on top of this was a uniquely toxic, destructive set of individuals trying to work their way through the crisis.

It was an environment where the prime minister’s right hand aide described himself as being in a “homicidal” mood at points, wanting to go back to Number 10 and fire people. At one point Mr Cummings launched four-letter diatribes about a senior official and said he wanted to “handcuff” her and remove her from the building.

Mr Cummings said during his testimony that during February he began to realise the pandemic plans Matt Hancock had told him existed did not actually exist.

This level of toxicity would make governing in normal times all but impossible. During a crisis it feels unforgivable.

Is what we’ve heard today enough to shame future politicians to ensure this never happens again?

Politics

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Published

3 hours ago

April 3, 2025

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Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.

The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.

Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).

Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin

Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.

It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.

The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.

26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US

Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.

Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.

Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Law, Bitcoin Regulation, United States, Policy, Bitcoin Reserve — *Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws*

According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Additional reporting by Helen Partz.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

Politics

US House committee passes stablecoin-regulating STABLE Act

Published

7 hours ago

April 3, 2025

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US House committee passes stablecoin-regulating STABLE Act

Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.

The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.

The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.

The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.

The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.

During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.

She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”

In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.

Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress

Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.

The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.

Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.

Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”

Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

Politics

‘My lawyers are ready’ for questions about corruption claims, ex-minister tells Sky News

Published

11 hours ago

April 3, 2025

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'My lawyers are ready' for questions about corruption claims, ex-minister tells Sky News

Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.

Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.

The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.

In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.

Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.

Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.

The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.

In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.

Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.

The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.

Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.

She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.

Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails

Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.

She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.

Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.