Carrie Symonds was 'going crackers' in regards to a dog story as pandemic grew and Downing Street dawdled

As the nation was hurtling for the coronavirus lockdown, Boris Johnson's former chief adviser Dominic Cummings continues to be describing the "surreal" events going on behind the curtain at Downing Street.

Giving evidence to a committee set up to look the teachings which have been learnt from the pandemic, he described the events of what went down on March 12 and took a swipe at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's girlfriend Carrie Symonds, who he said was going "crackers" on the newspaper story about her dog.

The day was 10 days before the Prime Minister announced the nation's lockdown as the pandemic was mushrooming out of control.

Mr Cummings said that Downing Street must have been concentrating on the necessity to force the interest rate on coroanvirus and prevent the rapidly rising tide of infections but the pandemic got overshadowed by the dog story and President Trump seeking to get the united kingdom involved in a bombing campaign in the centre East.

Speaking towards the Science and Technology Committee and Health insurance and Social Care Committee on Wednesday, Mr Cummings started his description of the day by explaining what he had designed in a text message written at 7.48am.

It read: "We've got big problems coming. The Cabinet Office is terrifyingly s***. No plans. Totally behind the interest rate. We must announce TODAY, not in a few days that if you feel ill with cold or fly symptoms stay at home.

"Some round the system wish to delay simply because they haven't done the work. We should force the pace. We are taking a look at 100 to 500,000 between optimistic and pessimistic scenarios."

He said the plans then got derailed when the national security team made contact with President Trump said he wanted the UK to become listed on American inside a bombing campaign in the Middle East that night.

Explaining how the day panned out, he said that instead of focusing on Covid the federal government was consumed having a potential bombing campaign in the Middle East at the request of Mr . trump along with a "trivial" story in the Times newspaper about Boris Johnson, his fiancee Carrie Symonds and their dog Dilyn

He said: "And then to add to … it sounds so surreal couldn't possibly be true … that day, the days had operate a huge story concerning the Pm and the girlfriend as well as their dog.

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

"So we had this type of completely insane situation in which area of the building was saying are we likely to bomb Iraq? Area of the building was arguing if we're going to do quarantine or otherwise do quarantine, the best Minister has his girlfriend going crackers about something completely trivial."

Dominic Cummings said the situation in Downing Street in mid-March was like "a scene from Independence Day with Jeff Goldblum saying the aliens are here and your whole plan is broken and you require a new plan".

Mr Cummings said on March 14 Boris Johnson was told that models showing the height was "weeks and weeks and weeks away" in June were "completely wrong".

He said the PM was warned: "The NHS will probably be smashed in weeks, really we've got days to act."

Follow live updates from the committee hearing here.