Thread by @PaulBrandITV

Dominic Cummings begins by slamming the government's approach to Covid-19.

It "fell disastrously short", he says.

"When the public needed us most, the government failed."

He says "how sorry I am for the mistakes I made".

"In no way shape or form did the government act like Covid-19 was the most important thing in January [2020]. It didn't act like it was the most important thing in February, never mind January."

"The government was not acting like it was on a war footing in any way, shape or form. Lots of key people were skiing in the middle of February."

Cummings says he didn't hit the panic button as much as he should have in February. Hard for him to blame the government without admitting his own failures.

Dominic Cummings admits he doesn't think he attended the early COBRA meetings at the start of 2020... He doesn't remember whether he attended in February (!)

Cummings says COBRA meetings aren't "massively useful". Right...

He says the contents of the COBRA meetings were "leaking like a sieve".

Cummings says Boris Johnson just saw Covid-19 as a "scare story"..."another swine flu".

He says Boris Johnson joked about being injected with Covid-19 live on TV to prove it was nothing to be concerned about.

No wonder the PM was happy enough shaking people's hands in hospitals as late as March.

Cummings says herd immunity was seen as "an inevitability" at the outset of the pandemic.

"Either you have herd immunity by September after a single peak, or by January after a second peak."

"That was the assumption until Friday 13th March".

Doesn't get much clearer than that.

Cummings says nobody wanted herd immunity, but they all felt it was inevitable.

"That was the plan. I am completely baffled why No 10 is trying to deny that. Hancock himself and the CSA and CMO were all briefing journalists saying that was the plan."

Cummings says he texted Boris Johnson on night of 11th March saying the government had to switch to social distancing immediately and not delay.

Cummings says the official plan had two main assumptions:

1. Public would not accept lockdown
2. Public would not accept track and trace

Cummings says he was pointing at the TV saying "look at what's happening in Lombardy"..."this assumption is false and we should abandon it".

Cummings says he texted PM at 12th March at 7:48am.

"We've got big problems coming. The cabinet office is terrifyingly shit... We must announce today that if you've got symptoms stay home. We're looking at 100,000 deaths."

Cummings takes a swipe at Carrie Symonds saying she distracted the PM from Covid that day with a story about their dog.

"The Prime Minister's girlfriend was going completely crackers about this story and demanding the press office deal with that".

Cummings says Downing Street was also distracted by Trump's demands that day for UK to join a bombing campaign in Middle East.

It was 9pm before Cummings sat down and looked at Covid again.

Dominic Cummings admits he should have told the PM to change approach sooner.

"It was a huge mistake...I bitterly regret that I didn't hit the panic button."

He says he was "frightened" of being wrong and persuading PM to take the wrong course.

Cummings claims PM was more concerned about the economy than deaths. Boris Johnson was the one delaying lockdown, rather than the Chancellor, he says.

"Fundamentally the Prime Minister didn't really think this was the big danger."

Cummings essentially teeing up Rishi Sunak for PM there...