Dan Wootton: Cummings is running a 'hate campaign' against Boris Johnson

So yes, I’ll admit, I immediately shelled out the other week to sign up to Dominic Cummings’ paid newsletter on a platform called Substack.

It was something like 100 pounds a year, but came with the promise of important revelations about the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. I don’t agree with Cummings’ vengeance-filled drip drip of bad news against the Prime Minister – who let’s never forget stood by him after Barnard Castle. But I needed to know what he’s going to spill.

Today it came in the form of a leaked text message exchange between himself and Boris Johnson, where he appeared to call the Health Secretary Matt Hancock useless and hopeless.

The first dig from the PM came on 27 March 2020, at the height of the first wave of Covid-19 with the government debilitated by the growing crisis. During a discussion about ventilators, Johnson sent to Cummings on WhatsApp: 'It's Hancock. He has been useless.'

The PM also described the situation around our limited testing capacity as “totally bleeping hopeless”.

That was the last exchange before Boris rang his then chief adviser to reveal he had himself tested positive for Covid. But on April the 27th there was another conversation about Hancock regarding PPE.

The PM said: 'I can't think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on. WTF do we do?' You can argue these text messages are of historical significance.The problem I have is they’re being used as part of an ongoing hate campaign by Cummings against the PM, because he lost a turf war with his now wife Carrie that saw him booted from Downing Street. The harsh reality is that Cummings might pretend he’s trying to add to the discourse around the government’s response to Covid, when in fact he is pursuing revenge.

Otherwise, wouldn’t he have released the text messages during his select committee appearance last week or saved them for the official public inquiry?