IT WAS THE evening of March 13th last year when Helen MacNamara, one of the most senior officials in the British government, strode into Boris Johnson’s study. Fifty-four Britons had died from covid-19 and more than 1,000 had tested positive. Ms MacNamara had just learnt that plans to prepare for such a situation, which were assumed to be extensive, did not exist. “I think we are absolutely fucked,” she declared. “I think we are going to kill thousands of people.”
That, at least, was the account of Dominic Cummings, formerly Mr Johnson’s top adviser, as he spoke on May 26th to a House of Commons joint select committee investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic. His seven hours of testimony were the first on-the-record account of decision-making at the heart of government. Mr Cummings did not disappoint those who hoped for an attack on his erstwhile boss, with whom he parted ways in November. But he also offered a scathing assessment of the performance of t