Earlier this week, Former No. 10 Chief Adviser Dominic Cummings told the COVID Inquiry:

“There were specific concerns about [former PM Boris Johnson’s] relationship with the Barclays, and The Telegraph, and there were specific concerns, and also suspicions of possible corruption in terms of his relationship with Osborne and funnelling money to the Evening Standard.”

He has subsequently tweeted:

"in my statement I explain how senior officials in No10 were worried about *corrupt payments made to the newspapers* - & I mentioned it in the Inquiry - do you see ANY coverage of this?!ZERONot one media story - radio silence from all the same wankers who normally jump on every 'scandal'"

In 2020, at least £35m was handed over to the largest newspaper publishers in a deal apparently drawn up with the NMA. Hacked Off and other organisations called for this to be investigated at the time.Since then, Cummings had made other comments to the effect that money was corruptly directed to newspaper publishers during the pandemic, culminating in his remarks of the last few days.Hacked Off CEO Nathan Sparkes commented,

“Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was handed over to powerful, wealthy and unregulated newspapers in 2020, in an agreement reportedly made directly between politicians and the corporate press lobby group the “News Media Association”. Hacked Off supporters and opposition politicians sounded the alarm over this apparent bung in 2020 but were met with silence from the Government and national press.While the largest publishers benefited from this deal, not a single independently regulated title received a penny.Cummings’ tweets add further weight to the allegation that this was a corrupt arrangement. The Inquiry must investigate this further.“The News Media Association has lobbied against the proper independent regulation of the press and the interests of the public. The Government has no business making behind closed-door deals with this body.”

For comment: HACKED OFF SPOKESPEOPLE AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWSFor all enquiries please contact:press@hackinginquiry.org / 07826 528296