Image source, Reuters

This morning we heard from Lee Cain, one of Boris Johnson’s closest and longest-serving aides.

He said:

• The pandemic was the "wrong crisis" for the prime minister's "skill set", describing indecision and delay in No 10
• The inquiry also heard Johnson was "obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life", according to notebook entries from then chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance in 2020
• Johnson's spokesman has so far declined to comment on the evidence given at these hearings, and is due to give evidence of his own soon

Dominic Cummings, Johnson's top adviser at the height of the pandemic, then gave evidence.

• He said the Cabinet Office was a "dumpster fire" and "bomb site" when he took up his role in 2019
• Cummings painted a picture of a government which was "dysfunctional" and had no plan to lock down the country or shield the vulnerable, even as the virus was spreading across the UK
• He said it was "pretty insane" that Johnson and other senior figures were on holiday over half-term in February 2020, as the Covid crisis escalated
• Text messages from Cummings, who was sacked in late 2020, were shown to the inquiry, many of which contained what he called "appalling language" about ministers and officials.
• He apologised for his language but denied being misogynistic
• He admitted that his family did not need to accompany him on an infamous trip to Barnard Castle during the first lockdown.
• He said the handling of the incident was a "disaster", but denied that the trip led to a collapse in public trust

We're ending our live coverage here, but you can read our full story here.

Updates on this page were written by Imogen James, Tara Mewawalla, Jemma Crew, and Becky Morton, with Krystyna Gajda on video.

The page was edited by Sam Hancock, Emily McGarvey, Marita Moloney and Dulcie Lee.

Today's evidence paints a picture of a chaotic Downing Streetpublished at 18:13 Greenwich Mean Time 31 October 2023

18:13 GMT 31 October 2023

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

There is a lot to process from what we've heard today. But it all paints a picture of a chaotic Downing Street - where Boris Johnson was slow to make decisions.

Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings were at the heart of the No 10 machine at key points.

Cain, who was No 10 director of communications, said it took too long to implement lockdown (although he argued it was a huge undertaking).

Cummings - hardly a fan of his former boss Johnson - said the operation was chaotic. Ministers and advisers were too "fatalistic" about supressing the virus.

He said there was no plan for lockdown. It was "insane" many went on holiday in February 2020.

Cummings was utterly scathing - often using offensive language - to describe cabinet ministers and government officials. He lobbied for the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock to be sacked - and accused him of misleading cabinet.

He wanted the deputy cabinet secretary handcuffed and marched out of Downing Street. Many will find that culture deeply problematic.

But perhaps the most damaging evidence today was publications from chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance's diaries.

He accuses Johnson of wanting to let old people get the virus in December 2020 - when many had already died.

He also says Johnson was "obsessed with older people accepting their fate" and letting the economy stay open.

Johnson will face the inquiry later in the year. There is a lot to put to him.

Just before the end of Dominic Cummings' evidence session, there was a fiery exchange between him and the inquiry's lawyer Hugo Keith, which we covered here.

They were discussing a now infamous trip Cummings took to Barnard Castle in Durham, north-eastern England, during the first lockdown in England.

During the back and forth, it was put to Cummings that confidence in the UK government's handling of Covid "collapsed after the matter came to light" - as well as his press conference in the rose garden at 10 Downing Street.

Cummings again blamed the government's handling of the situation - saying this was more disastrous than the trip itself.

Earlier, Boris Johnson’s former closest adviser admitted using "appalling language" while working in No 10, but said his judgement of "a lot of senior people was widespread" back in 2020.

Dominic Cummings was being questioned by inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith, who said Cummings expressed himself in "revolting ways”.

Watch the exchange below:

The inquiry has finished for the day, and that concludes Dominic Cummings' evidence. But there are a few other lines we'll be bringing you in the next few minutes, so stick with us.

The representative for Bereaved Families UK is questioning Cummings on Covid rules.

Cummings says compliance wasn't "at the level that we needed it to be" and that was a big issue.

Pete Weatherby KC asks: "When did you reach that view, was that before or after your trip to Durham?"

Cummings stumbles in his reply, before saying they were focused on enforcement from April.

He says No 10 were asking what the police were doing, but Weatherby interrupts, saying he isn't taking the point further.

In his final comments, Hugo Keith, the lawyer for the inquiry, is going over the relationship between Cummings and Johnson in mid to late 2020.

He says Cummings described the relationship as "knackered" in September.

In November, he left work and never returned, Keith says.

He wraps up by saying: "And you left Downing Street under the control of a man who you described yourself as 'unfit for office'. Thank you."

This is Keith's final point, and he steps down from questioning Cummings.

Pete Weatherby KC, representing Bereaved Families UK, takes over.

The inquiry lawyer has been asking Cummings about the infamous trip he took to Barnard Castle, in the north of England, on 12 April 2020, during the first lockdown.

This leads to a heated exchange, as Hugo Keith KC grills Cummings about why he needed to travel with his wife and child in the car.

"Obviously, I didn't have to have them in the car," Cummings eventually acknowledges.

Another fiery back-and-forth as Keith questions whether Cummings accepts that this action - and the press conference in the Downing Street rose garden - "caused immeasurable offence and pain to the bereaved".

Cummings says that the "handling" of these events was a "disaster" and a "car crash" for which he feels regret.

Image source, Reuters

In regards to the actions themselves, he says: "In going north and coming back down, I acted entirely reasonably and legally and did not break any rules."

Cummings is now being shown sections from his personal blog, which he regularly posted on after leaving government.

In a post on 5 July 2021, he says he and others who worked with Boris Johnson knew was "unfit to be prime minister" and that he "won't read papers, he cannot chair meetings".

Cummings, who was one of Johnson's most senior advisers, is pressed on whether it was right he helped put him into No 10 by contributing to his 2019 election victory.

Asked if he is sorry he did this, Cummings says "no", adding that he believed the alternative - Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister and a possible second Brexit referendum - was worse.

Instead, he says they chose to "roll the dice on Boris" and try to build a team around him.

The inquiry lawyer continues, moving onto Cummings' departure from No 10 in November 2020.

He had a text exchange with Johnson two days after leaving No 10, about reports in the media.

In one, Cummings writes the situation in No 10 is "a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism", suggesting the government should be focused on solving a crisis.

A little earlier, Cummings rejected the suggestion from the inquiry's lawyer that he denigrated women, including a colleague.

However, he did admit his language was "appalling".

Watch the exchange in this 64-second clip:

The focus has now moved to September and October 2020, when there was a debate over whether there should be another lockdown.

Asked whether he was in favour of a national lockdown at this time, Cummings says he was, and agreed with Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty, the government's key scientific advisers.

The inquiry is then shown a message on 15 October 2020, when Cummings said "we must not do national lockdown, must prefer local approach".

Pressed on why he said this, Cummings says there was an argument between 17 and 21 September over whether there should be a national lockdown.

But he says by 15 October "that ship had sailed" and Boris Johnson had decided to go down the "local approach". At this stage, Cummings says he was trying to get Johnson to stick to the local approach.

Moving on into late summer, the inquiry lawyer cites Cummings' statement, which says Boris Johnson was continuously changing his mind.

On the impact of the press on Johnson, Hugo Keith KC says the former PM paid a "great deal of regard" to what the papers were saying.

Keith asks Cummings about how this influenced his decisions.

Cummings replies by saying there was a general feeling that Johnson's constant responses to media pressure was "extremely bad" and "extremely damaging to the Covid response".

Cummings is asked if he treated individuals in Downing Street with offence and misogyny. He replies "certainly not".

The inquiry is shown a number of WhatsApp messages in which Cummings uses expletives and abusive language about deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara in August 2020.

In one he says he will "personally handcuff her and escort her from the building" if he has to waste any more time with her and says they need to get her out of the Cabinet Office.

In another message, he says "we should get someone to hammer [Prof Neil Ferguson]", a scientist on the Sage scientific advisory committee.

Cummings apologises for his language, which he says is obviously "appalling". But he claims he was far ruder about male officials and points to his record of appointing women to key roles.

Cummings says it was "a thousand times worse" that the Cabinet Office system had melted and there was a "kafkaesque nightmare" taking place.

Dominic Cummings is shown a message to Boris Johnson on 7 March 2020 in which he says the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock is "unfit for this job" and more concerned with media attention than battling Covid.

"His uselessness is still killing god knows how many," the text reads.

A subsequent text message to the PM two days later reads: "You need to think through the timing of binning Hancock. There's no way the guy can stay."

Jim Reed
Health reporter

Earlier, Dominic Cummings said that it was "obvious" that No 10 did not always get a proper understanding of the debate within a key scientific advisory group called Sage.

Sage - or the Scientific Group for Emergencies - is a body which advises the UK government in times of crisis.

In the pandemic, its membership grew to more than 200 individuals - mostly independent scientists working for universities, but also staff at agencies such as Public Health England and the Office for National Statistics.

Sage met - normally over video call - throughout the whole pandemic.

There has already been some criticism in this inquiry about the way in which advice from the group was relayed or "funnelled" to the prime minister and others in No 10.

Sage drew up what is called a "consensus position", which reflected the general view of the whole group. That was then sent to Downing Street as written minutes or via Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, who briefed the prime minister.

Cummings is asked about a comment in a meeting with the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak on 19 March, when somebody is alleged to have said: "we're killing the patient to tackle the tumour... why are we destroying the economy for people who will die anyway soon".

The inquiry's lawyer asks who made this comment and Cummings says he thinks it was the then prime minister, Boris Johnson.

He adds that it was a reflection of the fact the Treasury was "pushing back" and "baffled about what was going on", with plans shifting towards the possibility of a lockdown.

We mentioned earlier that some very strong language is being broadcast on the live feed from the inquiry as messages are read out in evidence.

This is because the lead counsel to the inquiry has decided that this evidence is pertinent to its aim of examining the UK’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and trying to learn lessons for the future.

The inquiry is chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, a former Court of Appeal judge.

While the BBC would not normally broadcast such strong language, we believe there is a clear public interest in reporting the inquiry's proceedings in full.

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's former top adviser during his time as prime minister, is continuing to give evidence at the Covid inquiry.

He's being questioned over discussions with Johnson about going into the first lockdown.

Cummings says Johnson was annoyed by the revelation that a lockdown had to happen, as the advice had been that it was both impossible and wouldn't work.

He adds that he feared the prime minister would go back on the decision.

The inquiry's lawyer is asking about the government's decision to ramp up Covid restrictions, eventually resulting in the first lockdown.

Cummings says Plan A began to fail when the situation worsened and so a Plan B was needed. Hugo Keith KC asks whether this was suggested at a meeting between Boris Johnson and his closest advisers on 15 March.

Cummings explains that there was "a great deal of confusion" and "anger" at that meeting because they were suggesting the original herd immunity plan had to be ditched.

He said people in the Cabinet Office and Department of Health felt "blind-sided".

Cummings goes on to clarify that there was no clear moment when the plan changed - "this was all complete chaos", he says.