‘Rishi thinks just let people die’: Dominic Cummings’ claim revealed in Sir Patrick Vallance’s COVID diary
Rishi Sunak thought the government should “just let people die” rather than see the country go into another lockdown, Dominic Cummings is said to have claimed.
A diary entry from the government’s former chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said Mr Cummings made the remark during a heated meeting over whether to impose stricter pandemic measures back in October 2020.
In the extract, shown to the official COVID inquiry on Monday, Sir Patrick said the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, had argued against any lockdown, saying he was for “letting it all rip” and that those who would die from contracting the virus had “had a good innings”.
Politics live: Johnson ‘looked broken’ in COVID meetings, claims adviser
Sir Patrick then detailed a row between Mr Johnson and his chief adviser, with Mr Cummings calling for the PM to act, “arguing we need to save lives”.
The chief scientist described Mr Johnson as “getting very frustrated” and “throwing papers down” in the meeting, before saying: “Looks like we are in a really tough spot, a complete shambles. I really don’t want to do another national lockdown”.
But according to the entry, the prime minister was told “to go down this route of letting go, ‘you need to tell people – you need to tell them you are going to allow people to die”.
Boris Johnson was “frustrated” in meetings and didn’t want to introduce a lockdown in October 2020, says Sir Patrick Vallance
The meeting ended with an agreement to “beef up” the tier system being implemented across the country at the time and to “consider a national lockdown”.
Sir Patrick also wrote: “DC [Dominic Cummings] says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s OK.”
The scientific adviser concluded it “all feels like a complete lack of leadership” – words he stood by at Monday’s COVID inquiry hearing.
Asked about the extract by the inquiry’s legal team, Sir Patrick added: “It must have felt like a complete lack of leadership and reading it, it feels like quite a shambolic day.”
‘Risk’ of Eat Out To Help Out
Earlier in the hearing, Sir Patrick also revealed the government’s scientific and medical advisers were not told about Mr Sunak’s “Eat Out To Help Out” scheme until it was announced by the then chancellor, saying their advice about the increased risk of transmission would have been “very clear”.
Written evidence from Mr Sunak to the inquiry said: “I don’t recall any concerns about [the scheme] being expressed during ministerial discussions, including those attended by [Sir Patrick].”
PM has to answer serious allegations
Sir Patrick Vallance today detailed the tug of war in government in the run-up to the first and second lockdowns – and in the course of it, made some serious allegations which Rishi Sunak will have to answer when he appears before the inquiry.
Its seriousness is not just that it comes from the chief scientist – who has no political axe to grind – but that much of this evidence is not in hindsight, but from contemporaneous notes in his diary.
The Treasury’s Eat Out to Help Out Scheme has been much picked over in this inquiry and Sir Patrick confirms the department did not seek any scientific advice before launching it and that it would have increased transmission risk.
That brings us up to the most damaging allegation against Mr Sunak
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But asked about the inconsistency with his own statement, Sir Patrick said: “Around that time lots of measures were being released and you will see repeated references in various minutes and notes and emails and indeed, I am sure, in my private notes, to our concern that people were piling on more and more things and this would come to drive R above one and I think that was discussed at cabinet as well.
“So I think it would have been very obvious to anyone that this was likely to cause, well, inevitably would cause an increase in transmission risk and I think that would have been known by ministers.”
He added: “I would be very surprised if any minister didn’t understand that these openings carried risk.”
A Number 10 spokesperson said they would not be commenting on specific evidence while the inquiry was ongoing.
But they said Mr Sunak believed it was “important that we learn the lessons of COVID, and that where lessons are to be learned, we do that in the spirit of transparency and candour”, adding: The government has submitted more than 55,000 documents in support of their work and continues to fully participate with the inquiry.”
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Rishi Sunak unveiled Eat Out To Help Out in July 2020 – but Sir Patrick Vallance says scientific and medical advisers weren’t told about it beforehand
The division did not appear to be limited to that one scheme, however, with Sir Patrick’s diaries showing how he thought scientific advisers were kept out of strategy meetings by both Number 10 and the Cabinet Office.
The adviser told the inquiry there were “periods when it was clear that the unwelcome advice we were giving was, as expected, not loved and that meant we had to work doubly hard that the science evidence and advice was being properly heard”.
He added: “There were times, because we were giving unpalatable evidence and advice, people would prefer not to hear it.”
Sir Patrick also said “pressure” was sometimes put on advisers to change advice, pointing to a WhatsApp exchange with the then health secretary Matt Hancock.
“[Mr Hancock] asked me to change something and I said no, we are not going to change our advice, because that is where the evidence bit comes in,” said the adviser. “You have got to at least see that even if you disagree with it and don’t want to do it.”
He added: “I am absolutely sure, because politicians are politicians, that there were attempts to manage us and make sure we were not always given the access we might need
“But I think overall we managed to get through all that… and make sure the advice and evidence was heard.”
Matt Hancock was health secretary during the pandemic
Asked for his opinion on Mr Hancock after working with him throughout the pandemic, Sir Patrick said: “He had a habit of saying things which he didn’t have a basis for.
“He would say them too enthusiastically, too early without the evidence to back them up and then have to backtrack from hem days later.
“I don’t know to what extent that was over-enthusiasm versus deliberate. I think a lot of it was over-enthusiasm, but he definitely said things that surprised me because I knew that the evidence base wasn’t there.”
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said: “Mr Hancock has supported the inquiry throughout and will respond to all questions when he gives his evidence.”
Johnson ‘bamboozled’
Mr Johnson’s understanding of the science was also brought into question by Sir Patrick, who said the prime minister was left “clearly bamboozled” during a meeting between the pair about schools in May 2020.
Ten days later, Sir Patrick wrote that Mr Johnson “sways between optimism and pessimism” and he was “still confused on different types of tests (he holds it in his head for a session and then it goes).”
Another extract from June 2020 said: “Watching [the] PM get his head around stats is awful. He finds relative and absolute risk almost impossible to understand.”
And a further entry from same month said it was “a real struggle to get [Mr Johnson] to understand” graphs.
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‘Science was not Boris Johnson’s forte’
Sir Patrick again stood by his entry when questioned by the inquiry’s legal team, pointing to how Mr Johnson dropped science as a subject aged 15, adding: “He did struggle with some of the concepts and we did need to repeat them often.”
But while the senior scientist said it was “hard work sometimes to try and make sure that he had understood what a particular graph or piece of data was saying”, Mr Johnson did not have a “unique inability to grasp some of these concepts”, adding that it was “not unusual amongst leaders in Western democracies”.
UK
Lucy Hargreaves was shot dead in 2005 – her home set on fire. A suspect in her murder is still at large
Britain’s most-wanted fugitive is still on the run – exactly 20 years after the fatal shooting of a young mother of three.
Kevin Parle is a suspect in the murder of Lucy Hargreaves, 22, who was shot dead at her home in Liverpool before the house was set on fire on 3 August 2005.
Since then, after many appeals for information, there has been no confirmed sighting, word or trace of him.
Two decades on, Ms Hargreaves’ family have had no justice. Two young men prosecuted for her murder had charges dropped when a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence against them.
In a statement marking the anniversary of her death, they said: “The way we lost Lucy is not something families can ever truly come to terms with – it is still incredibly difficult and painful to think about.
“Over the past 20 years, people will have talked with family and friends. A number of people were contacted by males using a phone that was stolen along with a vehicle used in Lucy’s murder.
“We appeal directly to them to please come forward. Now is the time.”
Police prediction of how Kevin Parle has aged since 2005. Pic: Merseyside Police
Three men burst into Lucy’s home 20 years ago today, shot her dead as she slept on a sofa, and set alight the duvet she’d been sleeping under.
It’s believed the gang were looking for her boyfriend Gary Campbell, who was upstairs. He fled from a window with their two-year-old daughter and then tried in vain to save Ms Hargreaves.
Mr Campbell had allegedly been a passenger in a stolen car that had hit and killed a young boy 12 years earlier, supposedly the motive for the shooting. He denied he was in the car at the time.
Ms Hargreaves with her three children
Howard Rubbery, head of the Serious Crime Review Unit at Merseyside Police said: “The family remain absolutely devastated by Lucy’s death.
“It’s important to note Lucy is an absolutely innocent victim. She’s not from a family of criminality. She wasn’t involved in criminality.
“The hunt for Kevin Parle is very much on, and we ask anybody with information, anybody who is close to Parle and knows where he is, to please come forward.
“There were three males responsible for this offence and we are looking for justice for Lucy’s family in relation to all three.
“I do believe that there are people out there who have yet to speak to the police, even though it’s 20 years on, who hold information that’s absolutely vital to our investigation.”
Police believe Parle, now in his 40s, fled to Spain where he hid among the vast expat community with criminal help.
Several years later, I tracked his movements to a holiday complex near Torrevieja, where staff convinced me he had stayed there for several weeks.
Former detective Peter Bleksley says Parle is being protected
‘Huge value to organised crime’
Former Scotland Yard detective Peter Bleksley, who recently spent four years on a personal hunt for Parle, also visited the complex and said: “He was bold and he was brash and he had a girlfriend at one point.
“The police actually should have captured him there, but they were too late.”
He claimed he nearly caught up with Parle at a villa elsewhere in Spain, but spooked him into disappearing again.
Mr Bleksley hosted an award-winning podcast and wrote a book in which he chronicled his manhunt.
He said: “Kevin Parle has remained hidden because he is funded, protected, looked after and of huge value to global, serious and organised crime.”
Parle can’t be hard to spot – he’s well-built, 6ft 5in tall, red-haired with a face scar and, originally at least, has a Liverpool accent. Of course, he might be dead.
Mr Bleksley said: “I can think of many reasons why certain criminals would want to get rid of Kevin Parle because he could, in terms of evidence about the cases that he’s wanted for, should he flip and become a witness for the Crown, be highly damaging for a lot of very tasty criminals.”
16-year-old Liam Kelly was shot dead a year before Ms Hargreaves. Pic: Merseyside Police
Parle is also wanted in connection with the murder of 16-year-old Liam Kelly, who was shot dead over an alleged £200 debt in June 2004, a year before Lucy’s death. Parle was arrested and questioned, but then freed on bail.
There have been reports of the fugitive in Australia and Dubai, but nothing to corroborate any of them.
If he’s alive and if no one is prepared to shop him, what might lead to his capture?
“I think when he has a fallout with those who have guarded him, funded him, fed him, put a roof over his head and all of that, maybe even paid for his plastic surgery that could have altered his appearance,” Mr Bleksley said.
“When he finally has a fallout, when he’s no longer of use, then perhaps that will be the day that somebody goes, Peter, he’s here.”
Several demonstrators have been detained after rival groups faced off over a hotel accommodating asylum seekers in north London, with police breaking up brief clashes.
The Metropolitan Police has since imposed conditions on the protest and counter-protest outside the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in Islington.
The protest was organised by local residents under the banner “Thistle Barbican needs to go – locals say no”.
The group of several hundred people waved union flags and banners, and one man chanted: “Get these scum off our streets.”
Anti-immigration protesters waved Union Jack flags. Pic: PA
A larger group staged a counter demonstration to voice support for asylum seekers, bearing a banner that read: “Refugees are welcome.”
People inside the hotel, believed to be migrants, watched on, with some waving and blowing kisses from the windows.
People believed to be asylum seekers waved the hotel windows. Pic: PA
Pro-immigration protesters gathered by the Thistle City Barbican Hotel. Pic: PA
A man wearing an England football shirt was detained by police after getting into an altercation with officers.
There have been nine arrests so far, seven of which were for breaching conditions police put on the protests under the Public Order Act.
Rival groups separated by police
Another protest was scheduled in Newcastle on Saturday, outside The New Bridge Hotel, as anti-migrant sentiment ripples through some communities around the country, also flaring up recently in Epping.
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Last week: Protesters divided over migrant hotels
The counter-protest in London was organised by local branches of Stand Up To Racism, and supported by former Labour leader and Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn.
Other community groups including Finsbury Park Mosque and Islington Labour Party were also involved.
Groups online that backed the original protest include “Patriots of Britain” and “Together for the Children”.
At one point, a large group of masked protesters dressed in black, calling themselves anti-fascists, appeared from a side street and marched towards the rival group outside the hotel.
The two groups briefly clashed before police rushed in to separate them.
Pic: PA
Supporters of local protest group ‘Thistle Barbican needs to go – locals say no’. Pic: PA
Why are asylum hotels used?
The government is legally required to provide accommodation and subsistence to destitute asylum seekers while their claims are being decided, most of whom are prohibited from working.
A jump in the use of hotels since 2020 has been attributed to the impacts of the COVID pandemic, a backlog in unresolved asylum cases, and an increase in the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
However, the number of asylum seekers living in hotels has fallen recently, from 38,079 at the end of 2024 to 32,345 at the end of March 2025, according to the Refugee Council.
How police tried to keep groups apart
The police imposed conditions on both groups in London to prevent “serious disorder” and minimise disruption to the community.
Those in the anti-asylum hotel protest were told to remain within King Charles Square, and to gather not before 1pm and wrap up by 4pm.
Those in the counter-protest were to required to stay in an area in Lever Street, and assemble only between 12pm and 4pm, but were still in eye and ear shot of the other group.
Chief Superintendent Clair Haynes, in charge of the policing operation, said: “We have been in discussions with the organisers of both protests in recent days, building on the ongoing engagement between local officers, community groups and partners.
“We understand that there are strongly held views on all sides.
“Our officers will police without fear or favour, ensuring those exercising their right to protest can do so safely, but intervening at the first sign of actions that cross the line into criminality.”
Meanwhile, the protest in Newcastle was promoted by online posts saying it was “for our children, for our future”.
The “stop the far right and fascists in Newcastle” counter-protest was organised by Stand Up To Racism at the nearby Laing Art Gallery.
A man has been remanded into custody charged with child cruelty offences after allegedly lacing sweets with sedatives.
Jon Ruben, 76, of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp in Stathern, Leicestershire.
He has been charged with three counts of wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning or exposing children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
The charges relate to three boys at the camp between 25-29 July.
The scene in Stathern, Leicestershire. Pic: PA
Ruben spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.
Police received a report of children feeling unwell at a camp being held at Stathern Lodge, near Melton in Leicestershire, last Sunday.
Officers said paramedics attended the scene and eight boys – aged between eight and 11 – were taken to hospital as a precaution, as was an adult. They have since been discharged.
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Police said the “owners and operators of Stathern Lodge are independent from those people who use or hire the lodge and are not connected to the incident”.
Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after officers initially reported the incident as having happened on Monday, only to later amend it to Sunday.
It is still unclear when officers responded and whether that is why the watchdog referral has been made.
Ruben will next appear at Leicester Crown Court on 29 August.
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