Boris slammed ‘hopeless’ health minister

London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in private WhatsApp exchanges slammed his health minister’s "hopeless" handling of the pandemic, a former top aide claimed on Wednesday.

Dominic Cummings, who stepped down as Johnson’s top adviser in December, posted screenshots of WhatsApp exchanges apparently between him and the prime minister in March and April 2020 as the UK battled the first wave of the pandemic.

The prime minister apparently responded, "Totally (obscenity) hopeless" to a comment by Cummings that Health Secretary Matt Hancock was unsure he would reach a target of 10,000 virus tests per week on schedule.

In another comment, Johnson blamed Hancock for the UK’s difficulty in getting hold of ventilators. "It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless," the message said. The messages appear to show Cummings playing a dominant role in his dealings with the prime minister, who at one point asks him: "Wtf do we do?"

Johnson did not respond to a question on the posts from an MP at Prime Minister’s Questions in parliament on Wednesday. Cummings, a key strategist behind the Conservative Party’s 2019 election victory and the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, said he was posting the messages to back up his explosive allegations against Hancock in evidence given to lawmakers during select committee hearings in late May.