DOMINIC Cummings was at the heart of the Westminster Government in the early stages of the pandemic and, yesterday, he described the situation as follows (deep breath): chaos, complacency, charlatans everywhere, mounting panic, catastrophic mistakes being made in a cramped, 300-year-old building unsuited to efficient working while, at the same time, Donald Trump wanted the UK to join him in bombing the Middle East and the PM’s girlfriend demanded urgent action be taken about a newspaper story concerning her dog.

I see. Wait, there was more. It was, said Mr Cummings, like the disaster movie, Independence Day, with Jeff Goldblum’s character saying: “The aliens are here and your whole plan is broken, and you need a new plan.”

As a sub-plot, the country was being run by an indecisive bumbler who really wanted to play the mayor in Jaws, and who was advised by his top civil servant to go on television and tell the lieges to hold “chicken pox parties”, as happened in the past, to achieve herd immunity. Oh, and the Health Secretary was a serial liar. Crivvens.

It was a headline-a-minute when Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser, appeared before two parliamentary committees yesterday.

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With his white shirt loosened one button too many to display his hairy chest, he personified intensity disguised in louche apparel, as he threw key dates, allegations and withering assessments around a room that looked like something from Holyrood with its light wood and conceptual art.

A slight tremor was detectable in his voice initially, and occasional episodes of reflux hinted at a full fried breakfast, possibly with a wee Malibu to set him up for the day.

He apologised so much that he made sorry sound like the easiest word. He was sorry for the way he and others had handled the crisis and, in particular, for failing to persuade the Prime Minister that it was quite serious.

An interesting picture emerged of those at the top (but not Cummings himself) believing – on the word of “charlatans” from behavioural science – that stout-hearted, freedom-loving Britons would never accept lockdown.

It was all right for East Asians such as the Taiwanese and Singaporians, because they were used to being told what to do. But tell a red-blooded Briton that he or she cannot go to the pub or bingo, and anarchy would ensue.

Looking back after lockdown, it’s salutary to remember some of the things that were going on early 2020. Said Dom: “Lots of key people were literally skiing in the middle of February.”

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, took two weeks off on holiday at Chevening, his grace-and-favour estate (where his officials said he worked – reportedly on a book).

Mr Cummings described as “completely surreal” the day that Boris Johnson finally realised a “catastrophe” was imminent, while the US president was seeking a chum for a spot of bombing, and Carrie Symonds was going “completely crackers” about her dog.

However, reassurance was on hand, with one senior official confiding: “I think we are absolutely f****d.”

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I suppose it’s as well we didn’t know this at the time. We thought everything was under control. Well, that’s what they told us. The situation, said Mr Cummings, was one of “lions led by donkeys”.

One reason for that, he said, was an unfit-for-purpose political system that enables hoofed mammals like Boris to become PM, with Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn the other contender. Any system that offered “a choice between two people like that” was fundamentally flawed, and political parties needed to ask themselves “if that’s the best they can do”.

To be fair, he added that it was “completely crackers” that someone like himself, lacking in scientific knowledge, should have been at the heart of things too. But what’s a poor chief adviser to do?

Resign was one option, and he revealed he’d thought about it in March last year, when he thought of warning the public that the Government was “going to kill thousands of people”. But he stayed on to bring light where there was darkness, graphs where there were doodles.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer took up Mr Cummings’ point about “a Prime Minister governing from a press release not a plan”. But Boris merely accused Sir Keir of being “fixated as ever with the rear-view mirror”, and added that he himself hadn’t even watched the morning’s proceedings.

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, clearly had and concluded: “We had a circus act when we needed serious government.”

And what a show it was, with Boris the clown chased round the ring by Dominic the fire-breather, while scientists juggled with statistics, senior civil servants walked a tightrope, the Health Secretary fooled nobody with his trick-cycling, and the PM’s girlfriend had everyone jumping through hoops while chair-wielding press officers fended off her dog.

To cap it all, Donald Trump got fired from a cannon, and at the climax Boris was swallowed up by a giant, inflatable shark. Marvellous.

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