DOMINIC Cummings has said a top civil servant told him the UK was “absolutely f*****” and thousands of people may die because there was no real pandemic plan – a week before the lockdown was put in place. 

The former government aide this morning tweeted a photograph of the Government’s "Plan B", which is scrawled over a whiteboard in red pen.

While giving evidence to the Covid-19 Select Committee, Cummings showed the board to the members questioning him – and referenced his own Twitter account – before going on to explain that as he and others in Number 10 were discussing the plan and the board, a top civil servant came in.

He claims that on Friday March 13 – a week before the official lockdown – he was with scientist Ben Warner and the Prime Minister’s private secretary in the PM’s study, when Helen Macnamara, Deputy Cabinet Secretary, arrived. 

The National:

Cummings said: “We’re thinking what do we do at this point. The second most powerful official in the country is Helen Macnamara, Deputy Cabinet Secretary. 

“She walked into the office while we’re looking at this whiteboard, she says I’ve just been talking to the official Mark Sweeney who is in charge of coordinating the department for health. 

“He said, quote, ‘I’ve been told for years that there was a whole plan for this, there is no plan, we’re in huge trouble.’ 

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“Helen Macnamara said 'I’ve come through here to the Prime Minister’s office to tell you all – I think we are absolutely f****d’, I think this country is headed for a disaster, I think we’re going to kill thousands of people’. 

“As soon as I’ve been told this I’ve come through to see you, it seems from the conversation you’re having that that’s correct, and I said – I think you’re right. I think it is a disaster, I’m going to speak to the Prime Minister about it tomorrow and we’ll sketch out what Plan B is.”

It comes as Cummings told MPs that ministers, officials and advisers "fell disastrously short of the standards the public has a right to expect" in the pandemic as apologised for the mistakes made and the lives lost "unnecessarily".