UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to be talked out of an in-person meeting with Britain’s elderly Queen Elizabeth II at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, his former adviser Dominic Cummings has claimed.
It is the latest in a series of explosive claims by Mr Cummings, who is now a bitter critic of the government that he left in a power struggle last year.
He said in a rare interview with the BBC that Mr Johnson had not thought through the risks of passing Covid-19 on to the monarch, then aged 93.
By the time of the alleged incident last March – which was denied by Downing Street – Mr Johnson had told the public to stop unnecessary contact with others and to work from home where possible.
According to Mr Cummings, the prime minister planned to press ahead with his weekly meeting with the Queen and said: “That’s what I do every Wednesday, I’m going to go and see her.”
“I said to him, there’s people in this office who are isolating, you might have coronavirus, I might have coronavirus,” Mr Cummings said.
He said he told Mr Johnson: “You can’t go and see the Queen. What if you go and see her and then give the Queen coronavirus? Obviously you can’t go.
“If you go, and you give her coronavirus, and she dies … you can’t do that, you can’t risk that, that’s completely insane.”
Asked to respond to Downing Street’s denial, Mr Cummings said: “I know it happened and other people who were there know it happened.”
Mr Johnson tested positive for the virus later in March and spent three nights in intensive care at a London hospital.
Having called off his weekly audiences with the Queen, he did not resume them until last month.
Mr Cummings was later embroiled in controversy when it emerged he had driven his family the length of England to isolate during the first lockdown.
He left his Downing Street role in November and has since gone public with claims of incompetence and lying at the top of the government.
In his BBC interview – which will be aired in full on Tuesday evening – he said Mr Johnson had sought to avoid a second lockdown last autumn because he believed “the people who are dying are essentially all over 80”.
“We can’t kill the economy just because of people dying over 80,” was how Mr Cummings described the prime minister’s attitude.
He suggested that Mr Johnson no longer believed there was a risk of the National Health Service being overwhelmed.
Mr Johnson did eventually order a second lockdown in England in November, and later a third in January.
Asked for evidence to support his claims, Mr Cummings said Mr Johnson had texted the comments to him and others.
Responding to the claims, Mr Johnson’s office said he had taken the necessary action and been guided by scientific advice.
“The government he leads has delivered the fastest vaccination roll-out in Europe, saved millions of jobs through the furlough scheme and prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed through three national lockdowns,” it said.
“The government is entirely focused on emerging cautiously from the pandemic and building back better.”
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Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
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The specs: 2019 BMW X4
Price, base / as tested: Dh276,675 / Dh346,800
Engine: 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 354hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 500Nm @ 1,550rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 9.0L / 100km
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Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 268hp at 5,600rpm
Torque: 380Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: CVT auto
Fuel consumption: 9.5L/100km
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RESULT
Manchester United 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Man United: Sanchez (24' ), Herrera (62')
Spurs: Alli (11')
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Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
BlacKkKlansman
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: John David Washington; Adam Driver
Five stars
Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
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6pm Dubai Trophy – Conditions(TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,200m
6.35Dubai Trophy – Conditions(TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,200m
1,800m
7.10pm Jumeirah Derby Trial – Conditions (TB) $60,000 (T)
1,800m ,400m
7.45pm Al Rashidiya – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,800m
8.20pm Al Fahidi Fort – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,400m
8.55pm Dubawi Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,200m
9.30pm Aliyah – Rated Conditions (TB) $80,000 (D) 2,000m
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE
1 Man City 26 20 3 3 63 17 63
2 Liverpool 25 17 6 2 64 20 57
3 Chelsea 25 14 8 3 49 18 50
4 Man Utd 26 13 7 6 44 34 46
----------------------------------------
5 West Ham 26 12 6 8 45 34 42
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6 Arsenal 23 13 3 7 36 26 42
7 Wolves 24 12 4 8 23 18 40
8 Tottenham 23 12 4 8 31 31 39
Results
1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1hr 32mins 03.897sec
2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull-Honda) at 0.745s
3. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 37.383s
4. Lando Norris (McLaren) 46.466s
5.Sergio Perez (Red Bull-Honda) 52.047s
6. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 59.090s
7. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) 1:06.004
8. Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari) 1:07.100
9. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri-Honda) 1:25.692
10. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin-Mercedes) 1:26.713,
BEACH SOCCER WORLD CUP
Group A
Paraguay
Japan
Switzerland
USA
Group B
Uruguay
Mexico
Italy
Tahiti
Group C
Belarus
UAE
Senegal
Russia
Group D
Brazil
Oman
Portugal
Nigeria
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Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
How the bonus system works
The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.
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