Dominic Cummings has laid bare the “surreal” chaos in Downing Street in March last year as the government grappled with the Covid pandemic, portraying the prime minister as obsessed with the media and making constant U-turns, “like a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”. In a seven-hour appearance before a Commons inquiry hearing, Cummings said “tens of thousands” of people died unnecessarily because of Johnson’s handling of Covid. (See 2.14pm.) His evidence combined a scathing critique of Johnson, primarily for his failure to take the pandemic seriously enough to and to order a second lockdown when scientists said it was necessary in September, a broadside against Whitehall, which he said was unfit to handle the crisis, and repeated (and uncharacteristic - Cummings has never been noted for his humility) apologies for what he said were his own failings in dealing with the crisis last year. Given the remarkably high opinion poll ratings enjoyed by the Conservative party, and Johnson personally, it is not clear how damaging this evidence will turn out to be. At PMQs Johnson implied this was all a “rear-view mirror” preoccupation. (See 12.05pm.) But, cumulatively, the evidence against the PM was compelling, and the hearing has triggered renewed calls for the public inquiry into the pandemic to start this year. Cummings also became the first person to go on the record as saying he heard Johnson say he would rather see the “bodies pile high” than order a third lockdown. (See 3.32pm.) Johnson has denied this from the despatch box, meaning that Cummings’ testimony lays him open to the charge of lying to the Commons - theoretically a resignation offence. Johnson has refused to deny that he initially dismissed coronavirus as “another scare story” and that he delayed a second lockdown because Covid was “only killing 80-year-olds”, in a prime minister’s questions dominated by claims made by Cummings. Cummings said he called for Matt Hancock to be sacked “almost every day” due to alleged “criminal” behaviour but Johnson was advised to retain the health secretary because “he’s the person you fire when an inquiry comes along”, he claimed. Cummings has apologised for the mistakes Boris Johnson’s government made during the Covid-19 pandemic, conceding that he and his colleagues disastrously failed the British public. Cummings has admitted he did not tell the whole truth over his lockdown journeys to Durham, apologised for his handling of the “debacle”, and said he now wishes he had never gone to Barnard Castle. That’s all from me for today. Our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog.