Gove's Dramatic Messages Reveal No 10 Covid Errors

Michael Gove sent texts to Dominic Cummings weeks before the first lockdown saying that the situation was ‘worse than you think’ (PA)

- ARCHIE MITCHELL, ADAM FORREST

Michael Gove warned that the government was “fucking up” its Covid response at the height of the pandemic and would “regret it for a long time”, bombshell new WhatsApp messages reveal. The expletive-laden messages shared at the Covid inquiry show the senior cabinet minister told No 10 strategist Dominic Cummings weeks before the first lockdown that the situation was “worse than you think”.

Mr Gove also apologised to the families who lost loved ones for mistakes made by the Conservative government – admitting that the UK was too slow into the first and second lockdowns in 2020. In a foul-mouthed message, the then-Cabinet Office minister told Mr Cummings in early March 2020: “I don’t often kick-off. But we are fucking up as a government and missing golden opportunities.”

Mr Cummings, then Boris Johnson’s top adviser, called the Cabinet Office a “fucking joke” in his response, complaining that officials had lied about the existence of a plan to tackle the pandemic. On yet another explosive day at the official Covid inquiry, it emerged: