Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s former Chief Aide, began his appearance in front of a joint meeting of the Science and Technology Select Committee and the Health and Social Care Select Committee today by apologising for his own mistakes relating to the Government’s response to Covid and for falling – alongside ministers, advisors and other officials – “disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect… in a crisis like this”.
It didn’t take long for Dominic’s attention to turn to the failings of others. Perhaps his most eye-catching assertion was that Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been sacked “for at least 15 to 20 things”, including “lying to everybody on multiple occasions”. The MailOnline has more.
He accused the Health Secretary, among other things, of overplaying the U.K.’s readiness for a massive infectious disease outbreak early last year.
And in a gobsmaking [sic] personal attack, which even took the MPs on the Commons Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees by surprise, he today said: “Like in much of the Government system, there were many brilliant people at relatively junior and middle levels who were terribly let down by senior leadership.
“I think the Secretary of State for Health should’ve been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the Cabinet room and publicly.
“There’s no doubt at all that many senior people performed far, far disastrously below the standards which the country has a right to expect. I think the Secretary of State for Health is certainly one of those people.
“I said repeatedly to the Prime Minister that he should be fired, so did the Cabinet Secretary, so did many other senior people.”
Mr Cummings said one of Matt Hancock’s lies was that everybody got the treatment they deserved in the first peak when “many people were left to die in horrific circumstances”.
Asked to provide evidence of the Health Secretary’s lying, the former Chief Aide to the Prime Minister told the Commons committee: “There are numerous examples. I mean in the summer he said that everybody who needed treatment got the treatment that they required.
“He knew that that was a lie because he had been briefed by the chief scientific adviser and the chief medical officer himself about the first peak, and we were told explicitly people did not get the treatment they deserved, many people were left to die in horrific circumstances.”
Mr Cummings said that assurances given to him by Mr Hancock in January last year that pandemic preparations were brilliant “were basically completely hollow”.
Other points made by Cummings relating to the Government’s Covid response were highlighted by Toby last night, and Sky News has since produced a handy report on the main allegations made in the session.
The MailOnline report is also worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Freddie Sayers of UnHerd has written about Dom’s fantasy version of events: that he invented lockdown.
Stop Press 2: Having watched DC’s testimony, Ross Clark says in the Telegraph that it’s just as well he’s out of Government because his contempt for democracy was palpable.
Stop Press 3: A senior Tory has told the Telegraph that Hancock is now the Cabinet member least likely to be moved in the coming reshuffle.
Dominic Cummings might be gunning for Matt Hancock – but that doesn’t mean he is at risk from a demotion at the next reshuffle if the word in Westminster is to be believed.
One senior Tory tells me: “Matt Hancock has now got the safest role in govt – Boris won’t sack him now.”
That’s not to say the claims aren’t being believed. “[Matt] can exaggerate,” says the MP. “He hears things are possible and then tells you that it is already happening. It’s v plausible.”
But he is safe because the Prime Minister “won’t admit Cummings is right… it would show weakness if Boris did it now”.
“And Hancock is the shield for the boss,” the backbencher adds.
Taken from the Telegraph‘s live blog of Cummings’ testimony.
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” a concept that completely misunderstands the purpose of having exams”
Lol – highly “intelligent” and “educated” people who fail to understand the very thing they are there to do. As a civilisation, we do seem to be well and truly banjaxed.
Thanks to the author and to DS for this first-hand insight.
Not everyone can be a brain surgeon!
Merit is what drives intellectual progress, and on rare occasions, savantisum (Einstein and the like) but hard work and endeavour powers progress not a free ride!
Thanks for the response. You may be right that Rojstaczer’s explanation does not apply to Britain, even if it does apply to the US. Incidentally, I don’t think the observation that “student evaluations generally take place way before students actually get their grades” is as fatal for the explanation as you suggest. Students sit preliminary exams and get predicted grades, which correlate strongly with their final marks. Hence many already know they stand a good chance of getting a first when they submit their evaluations.
I don’t think it’s quality of research that determines a university’s position on a league table. It’s getting papers published in prestigious journals that counts. This should be an indication of the quality of the research, but in reality publication often depends on the conclusions that a paper reaches. An obvious example is climate science where a paper can be a load of tosh but if it supports the alarmist agenda it will get published but if it’s “sceptical” it’s likely to be rejected even if it’s a brilliant piece of research. I’m sure the same applies in most of the social sciences i.e. if a paper supports the woke agenda and makes frequent use of phrases such as “systemic racism”, “post colonialism”, “toxic masculinity” etc. it’ll be published but gender critical papers or those that don’t agree with critical race theory, for example, will be rejected.
As someone who was a TA in grad school many years ago in the USA, I can tell you without a doubt that at least on my side of the pond, student-based evaluations of teacher are a BIG contributor to the problem of grade inflation. Maybe not the only factor, but a significant one nonetheless. It turns it into a popularity contest, basically.
To reverse grade inflation, it’s not gonna be easy, but three things must be done:
1) Abolish the evaluations, yesterday.
2) Put a mandatory “sinking lid” on the percentage of students of each course who can be given “A” grades, gradually reducing it each year or semester until only the top 10-20% can get “A” grades.
3) Bring back “weed out” courses, to restore at least some semblance of rigor.
Problem solved. But that would make too much sense, of course.
I used to teach on what was supposed be a “weed out” course as you call it. We were proud of our standards and the achievements of our students who passed.
Unfortunately when the “bums on seats” approach to funding the education of said students (who became known as “learners”) came into being the standards plummeted as the all-shall-have-prizes philosophy took over. We had no say in what was happening as re-evaluation of students (being allowed to resit assessments until they passed) took place external to our department and we were initially astonished by the appearance certain students/learners in a more advanced course after the summer break. We learned that our standards were not respected.
I resigned…
Step 1: we don’t have enough of group X in higher education
Step 2: But not enough of X pass the entrance exam.
Step 3: it couldn’t possibly be because they don’t have the aptitude
Step 4: the entrance exam is measuring the wrong thing, let’s abolish it
Step 5: Not only X but almost everybody who we admitted aren’t doing well
Step 6: Make the course easy enough for everybody to do ok
It would be better to have a quota for X rather than relax standards across the board, as the latter approach would reduce the quality of the entire student body.
Be careful what you wish for. Quotas cause their own set of problems as well.
And I wortked so hard in the 70’s to get a STEM first – where do I claim my reparations?