News

Yvette Cooper thought Boris Johnson was ‘ducking’ her question so she absolutely let him have it

Yvette Cooper thought Boris Johnson was ‘ducking’ her question so she absolutely let him have it

Over the last few days, Boris Johnson has tried to steer away from scrutiny over his advisor Dominic Cummings, but there's no shortage of people wanting to stop him from sweeping the controversy under the rug.

The latest scathing line of questioning came from Labour MP Yvette Cooper on Wednesday night during a livestream Liaison Committee meeting.

Cooper began by reading out the results of a damning new survey from Mumsnet. According to the survey, Cooper stated:

A quarter of parents said they didn’t have access to childcare when they had Covid-19 and were in exactly the same circumstances as Dominic Cummings.

Cooper then revealed that a third of them said they would be more likely to break the rules now because of the controversy.

She then asked what the clear advice for parents in the same situation as Dominic Cummings is, to which Johnson responded:

The clear advice is to stay at home unless you absolutely have to go to work to do your job. If you have exceptional problems with childcare then that may cause you to vary your arrangements and that’s clear.

Calling Johnson out, Cooper then said she was asking specifically about advice to parents who have coronavirus.

Then came her scalding hot take:

Here’s the problem, Prime Minister. The reason you are ducking this is because… the reason you’re not giving a straight answer is because you’re trying to protect Dominic Cummings. The reason you’ve sent all of your ministers out to say fudgy things and unclear things is because you are trying not to incriminate Dominic Cummings and you don’t want to apologise for him.

The problem is that means you are putting your political concerns ahead of clear public health messages to parents who have coronavirus. The consequence to that is putting your political concerns above the national interest.

Mic drop.

Johnson denied Cooper’s claims but it was too late, people were already taking to social media to express their amazement over Cooper’s total evisceration:

Since the Dominic Cummings controversy broke, he’s faced increasing calls from the public to resign.

While Cummings maintains he hasn’t broken any laws, many think he’s broken “the spirit” of the lockdown measures and that’s undermining the government’s messaging.

The Conversation (0)