Helen MacNamara claims officials were ‘laughing at the Italians’ at start of pandemic

Civil servants making decisions during the pandemic were always “miles away from most people in the UK”, Helen MacNamara has told the Covid inquiry, Archie Mitchell reports.

“For example, in policy discussions when the restrictions were loosening, I found myself explaining that even people who were lucky enough to have a back garden might not have separate back gate or outside loo,” she said.

The former top civil servant said the full cabinet were “a bit more grounded” and better at bringing a “wider perspective”, but were “not asked their opinion very often”.

MacNamara also said that cabinet government was essentially abandoned during the pandemic and that secretaries of state were not properly briefed on the science.

“I was concerned about what they saw as circumnavigating a cabinet governance and you were increasingly worried that the cabinet themselves were not being given a full scientific picture or able to properly be part of accountable decision making,” she said.

Helen MacNamara said the culture of leaking in Downing Street and Whitehall was “corrosive” and forced “rushed” decision-making, Archie Mitchell reports.

“I think it’s very important that there is good reporting,” she told the Covid inquiry.

But she said when “somebody decides to leak something ill-formed” it leads to everyone having to “rush around trying to come up with what the real answer ought to be in hours rather than days”.

Helen MacNamara, who brought a karaoke machine to a lockdown-busting party in Downing Street, was warned that socialising during the pandemic showed “utter contempt to the electorate”, Archie Mitchell reports.

After suggesting greater socialising among staff to boost morale, the former top civil servant was sent a note by John Owen, then private secretary to Mark Sedwill, saying: “Fundamentally disagree with this. When we are telling the country to socially distance it shows utter contempt to the electorate to openly flout those rules.

“Plus when we are going on about how tech and data will save the day for absolutely everything to admit that we can’t use it is not acceptable.”

Helen MacNamara said “hundreds” of civil servants and ministers would have found themselves on the “wrong side” once the police drew a line at Boris Johnson’s Partygate birthday bash, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant told the Covid inquiry: “When the police drew the line of what was acceptable or not acceptable as the birthday gathering in the Cabinet Room, when they said that was the wrong side of the line, I’m certain that there are hundreds of civil servants and potentially ministers who in retrospect think they were the wrong side of that line.”

Helen MacNamara said lockdown-busting Downing Street parties should “never have happened”, including one to which she took a karaoke machine, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant said she thought that by getting people to talk to each other more, “they might in fact be able to work better together”.

She told the Covid inquiry she was “not partying in No10, I was either at work or at home”.

And she said she would find it hard to pick “one day” on which the Covid rules were followed in Downing Street.

McNamara recalls that the one time was a cabinet meeting and that everybody present “moaned” afterward that the rules were followed.

The former top civil servant described as a “c***” by Dominic Cummings said it was “horrible” to read his messages, Archie Mitchell reports.

But she said it was “both surprising and not surprising”.

She said Mr Cummings, then chief of staff to Boris Johnson, was “frustrated” with her.

But she said she was just “doing my job as a civil servant”.

“All I was doing was working in the service of the then prime minister,” Ms MacNamara told the Covid inquiry.

She added: “It is disappointing to me that the prime minister did not pick him up on the use of some of that violent and misogynistic language.”

Helen MacNamara said the “female perspective” was being missed during the pandemic because of a “macho” culture and sexism in Downing Street, Archie Mitchell reports.

She said women were “ignored and excluded” and some who had worked with the Cabinet Office for years felt they had “become invisible overnight”.

This led to failures in policy areas such as domestic abuse and abortion.

A “macho” culture which led to Downing Street resembling a “superhero bunfight” would not have developed under Theresa May’s leadership, Helen MacNamara has said, Archie Mitchell reports.

The former top civil servant produced a report in May 2020 which found bad behaviour by senior leaders being tolerated, junior women being talked over and ignored and “too many people behaving as if they had been parachuted in to save the day”.

Asked at the official Covid inquiry about the report, Ms MacNamara said there was not “any world” in which the culture could have developed under Mrs May.

“Maddening bureaucracy” meant it took seven months for the Cabinet Office to install a hand sanitiser station by the door that links it to No10, Archie Mitchell reports.

Helen MacNamara described it as a “\door with a pin pad that anyone who worked for the Prime Minister was constantly having to touch on their way through”.

And she said there was “no proactive attempt to recognise and create the kind of HR support that a team like this needs”.

The former top civil servant said even she was “surprised” by how long it took and she “hopes” people are now being better looked after.

“As an organisation the Cabinet Office excels in creating the kind of faceless bureaucracy that is maddening even to those who are theoretically in positions of power,” she said.

The hand sanitiser was a “small but demonstrative example” of the “neglect” shown to staff.

Helen MacNamara said there was “no magic cupboard” for dealing with crises such as Boris Johnson’s almost-fatal battle with Covid during the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.

“It is fair to say that there is no magic cupboard you can open in the Cabinet Office that has this is what to do in the circumstances,” she said.

She added: “It felt like working or living in a sort of dystopian nightmare, that just when one terrible thing happened then the next terrible thing was about to happen.

“And the prime minister being so gravely ill was obviously awful.”