BORIS Johnson is operating a "chumocracy" which will see him privatising the NHS by stealth, according to a former government chief scientist.

Sir David King also accused the Prime Minister of corruption and mishandling the pandemic and climate crisis.

“I am extremely worried about the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, about the processes by which public money has been distributed to private sector companies without due process,” he told the Guardian. "It really smells of corruption.”

King contrasted the success of the vaccination programme, carried out by the NHS, with the failure of the government’s test-and-trace operation in England, which has been contracted out to private companies such as Serco.

“The operation to roll out vaccination has been extremely successful, it was driven through entirely by our truly national health service and GP service – just amazing,” he said.

“Yet we have persisted with this money for test and trace, given without competition, without due process … I am really worried about democratic processes being ignored.”

He continued: “This is a so-called chumocracy, that has been a phrase used, and that is what it looks like I’m afraid: it is a chumocracy.”

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In May last year, King set up an independent alternative to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) committee, which advises on the pandemic. Independent Sage aims to be somewhere for its upaid members to offer public health advice without being influenced by politics after it was revealed that Johnson’s then adviser Dominic Cummings had sat in on some Sage meetings.

King, a former professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, was appointed chief scientific adviser under Tony Blair in 2000, serving until 2008, and under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition was appointed chair of the Future Cities Catapult, launched in 2013. He also worked under Johnson as foreign secretary whenn Theresa May was prime minister.

King said: “He was my boss – he wrote me a handwritten letter to congratulate me on my climate success.”

King said there was no excuse for the goverment's handling of Covid, adding: "People say it’s a crisis – I say the government is using a crisis to privatise sections of the healthcare system in a way that is completely wrong. 

“A fraction of this money going to public services would have been far better results."

“It is slipping this through in the name of a pandemic – effectively, to privatise the NHS by stealth,” he went on.

“I’m quite sure this has not been an accident, I’m quite sure this has been the plan, there has been clarity in this process. The audacity has been amazing.”

King also expressed concern over the police and crime bill, which would give police the powers to shut down protests. 

“It’s extremely worrying, as we pride ourselves in Britain on having developed a true democracy," he added.

"Any democracy needs to give voice to dissent. There’s a real danger that we’re going down a pathway that leads away from democracy.”

It comes as a scathing new report found Johnson is a prime minister “who speaks for England alone” and has "considerable indifference" to the devolved nations.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson shows 'considerable indifference' to Scotland, scathing report reveals

Research from the University of Cambridge's Bennett Institute for Public Policy, released today, highlights concerns about the way the UK Government treats devolved administrations, and the sense in Whitehall that maintaining the Union is "someone else's problem".

The "Union at the Crossroads" document comes after three years of research and dozens of interviews with key figures, as well as analysis of the relationships between Downing Street and the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Philip Rycroft, the permanent secretary to the Brexit department until 2019, said even major political changes such as the Scottish independence referendum and the 2015 SNP landslide prompted little soul-searching in Westminster.

READ MORE: Scotland records lowest number of daily Covid cases since September

Rycroft said the pandemic had deepened the crisis with a breakdown of communications with central government and demonstrated the competence of devolved leaders like Nicola Sturgeon and Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford.

Rycroft said despite the 2014 referendum, “the cost of getting things wrong on devolution is seen as somebody else’s problem for most Whitehall departments.”

He added: “There is little emotional engagement across government with the trends towards independence, no sense that maintaining the Union is part of everyone’s job.”