I suspect that of a number of comments Ms MacNamara has made about Cummings, noting that he was a history graduate and was unable to understand the science will annoy him most (since it punctures his soi-disant polymath persona so neatly).
I also disagree about Johnson having - and maintaining - widespread support. Thanks to FPTP, his large majority of seats was obtained with a minority of votes cast, and I do t believe his popularity has improved since 2019. Gransnet, by the nature of its demographics, is not typical, obviously.
Things that have stood out for me in the current module of the inquiry, beyond the marked incompetence and dishonesty of Ministers: Williamson’s ideological hatred of unions exposing children, teachers and staff to serious illness; the idea that Frost could have been given a national security lead role; how many journalists are professing themselves surprised by the extent of Johnson’s mendacity, laziness, and procrastination, when people outwith the media (and some within, who’d worked with him) were screaming that information from the rooftops years ago; the extent to which the entire Cabinet was divorced from the reality of the electorate’s lives. Anyone who ever questions why having lived experience as a key factor in policy making is important should be forced to read any number of the written evidence to the Inquiry.
Mainly, I hope this module alone is enough to stop the oft-repeated nonsense about how Johnson/the Cabinet ‘got all the big calls right’.
