Ian Hislop did not hold back about what he thought of Dominic Cummings’ appearance at the Commons Select Committee on Friday night’s Have I Got News For You.
The team captain blasted Boris Johnson’s former chief advisor in a savage takedown following the seven hour hearing in which he made explosive claims about the PM and the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ian described Cummings’ appearance as “one of the most disgusting performances in public life.”
Other captain Paul Merton said: “Dominic Cummings has been giving evidence, Seven hours’ worth I believe. He made lots of powerful statements and somebody’s lying, somewhere in the middle of all this. Not everybody is telling the truth.
’He’s made various accusations and Boris and Matt Hancock have denied them.”
Ian – who was joined by David Mitchell – joked: “It’s good that we’ve got David on tonight, because it’s an episode of Would I Lie To You?’, and the answer is, for everyone… yes they did.”
He continued: “He said ‘Boris Johnson is not fit to be Prime Minister.’ Of course he isn’t, he appointed you! That doesn’t take eight hours, does it?
“He did that classic thing at the start of saying it’s all everybody else’s fault. Would you believe it?
“The government has really handled this very badly… if only there’d been someone at the heart of government who could have said ‘this whole thing is going wrong.’ Maybe an advisor… maybe a senior advisor…
“It was one of the most disgusting performances in public life that I can remember.”
David then asked: “Assuming we can believe a word the devious bastard says, who is to blame for everything?”
Ian replied: “The Prime Minister is to blame for everything, and the Prime Minister should never have become Prime Minister. Except, this is the man who almost single-handedly worked to make him Prime Minister.
“It’s absolutely extraordinary that he only noticed that the Prime Minister was utterly useless when he was sacked.
“It just didn’t occur to him the whole time he was on board with the project, and then suddenly, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve suddenly realised… you’re an idiot, and so am I’”.
Have I Got News For You continues on BBC One at 9.00pm tonight, guest hosted by David Mitchell.