This week’s witnesses to the Covid inquiry have come as a jaw-dropping revelation to some people. But not to those of us who have been following Westminster politics close up for many years. Many sketches turn out to have been no more than accurate transcriptions. Almost as if we had a ringside seat inside government. No 10 as writers’ room. Amazing as it may seem, if you put a sex-crazed narcissist with the attention span of a flea in charge of a pandemic, then what you get is chaos. So, yes, everyone really was as incompetent as you had feared. And their individual turf wars took priority over minimising deaths. This was government as The Thick of It on hallucinogenics. Complete with its own insider language. So here’s your guide to some of the phrases that may have confused you.
Fuckpigs: This was a new one to all of us. Even to Malcolm Tucker. But it was a standard form of address by Dominic Cummings to anyone with whom he came into contact. To this career sociopath, everyone was a “useless fuckpig”. Nor was it just reserved for people with whom Dom disagreed. Though that was anyone. Dom has never met anyone he hasn’t considered a moron. It was also used as a term of endearment. As in when he talked to his family. “Come on you useless fuckpigs. Get in the car. We’re off to Barnard Castle.”
