Matt Hancock said he was too busy ‘saving lives’ to watch Cummings criticise him – but people aren’t convinced

Health secretary Matt Hancock has claimed he was too busy “saving lives” to watch Dominic Cummings’ testimony yesterday, but people aren’t so sure.

Yesterday, over the course of seven gruelling hours, the Prime Minister’s former adviser gave evidence to a parliamentary committee about the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and made a number of strong claims against Hancock – including that he messed up the UK’s track and trace system, was too focussed on vanity testing targets and used scientists “as a shield” to deflect blame on himself.

But when Sky News reporters asked Hancock to respond to these allegations, Hancock double downed and said: “I haven’t seen this performance today in full. Instead I’ve been dealing with getting the vaccination rollout going, especially to over 30s, and saving lives.”

You heard it: when you were wasting time watching Cummings hold the government to account and increase transparency, Hancock was “saving lives!”

But people on social media were less than convinced by Hancock’s comments and told him so:

That Cummings has wound him up is pretty clear. Hancock added: “I’ll be giving a statement in the House of Commons tomorrow, and I’ll have more to say then.”

He’ll also be hosting a Downing Street press conference today.

We look forward to it.