What Dominic Cummings has to say about the government’s handling of the pandemic will be seen at the box office | Political news

Has the government been too late to lock the country down, not once but twice?

What actually happened during the deployment of test and trace and around the award of PPE contracts?

Did UK border politics fuel the virus and did the PM really say he’d rather see the stacked bodies by the thousands to re-lock the country (a claim Boris Johnson has repeatedly denied)?

All questions that have yet to be fully answered, but on Wednesday we will have a first-hand account of the behind-the-scenes handling of the pandemic from the now estranged Chief Deputy to the Prime Minister Dominic Cummings.

This will be viewing at the box office.

There is of course the intrigue in what Mr. Cummings might now say about this trip to Barnard Castle and whether he will engage in personal attacks on his former boss.

But his testimony will also provide an account of decisions made behind closed doors that affected millions of people – and still affect us.

It is extremely unusual for the prominent advisor to the Prime Minister and a key decision maker in the first 18 months of this pandemic to break down and speak out publicly even before next year’s official investigation is underway.

His unfiltered testimony about the government’s handling of the pandemic will likely be extremely difficult for Number 10 as well.

MPs on the Joint Parliamentary Committee – this hearing is a link between the Special Committees on Health and Science and Technology – hope Mr Cummings’ testimony and the evidence he has promised to provide might help them to start finding out what really happened in the race. until the first and second lockdowns (in March and November 2020 respectively), as well as the broader management of the pandemic by the government.

The session could last up to four hours (dividing into PMQ), and I’m told MPs will split their questions into …