Boris Johnson is grilled for six hours at the Covid Inquiry, with the former PM quizzed on everything from an allegedly 'toxic' culture in No 10 during the pandemic to why lockdown happened when it did. DAVID CHURCHILL reports on the long-awaited showdown

Boris Johnson faced a gruelling interrogation for more than six hours while on the stand at the Covid Inquiry in London yesterday. 

The former Prime Minister was quizzed on everything from an allegedly ‘toxic’ culture in Downing Street during the pandemic to why lockdown happened when it did. 

Chief political correspondent David Churchill was there to witness the long-awaited showdown.

'We put our hands up... Mistakes were made'

Boris Johnson opened his evidence by saying how 'deeply sorry' he was for the 'pain, the loss and the suffering' of people who lost loved ones in the Covid-19 ­pandemic. The inquiry's lead counsel, Hugo Keith KC, then read a section of Mr Johnson's witness statement which ­conceded that 'mistakes were unquestionably' made.

Asked what he meant by this, Mr Johnson told the inquiry: ­'Inevitably we got some things wrong. I think we were doing our best at the time given what we knew and the information I had available to me at the time.

'I think we did our level best. Were there things we should have done differently? Unquestionably.'

He said he couldn't answer the question of whether government decisions led 'materially to a greater number' of deaths.

'I can't give you the answer to that question,' he said.

'Many other countries suffered terrible losses from Covid-19 and the evidence I've seen is that we're well down the European table and well down the world table [for excess deaths].'

He went on to say his government did not fully believe some of the infection rate and mortality forecasts made in the early stages of the pandemic, saying 'we have to put our hands up' and ­acknowledge they were unable to comprehend the implications.

He conceded that his administration 'underestimated the scale and pace of the challenge'.

He added: 'We were all collectively underestimating how fast it had already spread in the UK, we put the peak too late, the first peak too late.'

He also said he was wrongly advised until mid-March that people were unlikely to have Covid-19 unless they had symptoms.

'Don't introduce limits too early'

Mr Johnson chaired his first COBRA meeting on March 2, the inquiry heard. At this meeting Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was among experts warning that 'interventions to delay the spread of the virus must not be implemented too early to ensure maximum effectiveness', to avoid 'behavioural fatigue'.

Mr Johnson also said he recalled it was 'the prevailing view for a long time' among experts that locking down a population with 'no immunity' too quickly can lead to the virus 'bouncing back' later on when measures are lifted.

These arguments were made powerfully and 'certainly had a big effect' on his decision making, he told the inquiry.

Mr Keith asked Mr Johnson if he would have locked down sooner if this had not been the scientific advice at the time.

He said: 'I can't say whether I would have gone earlier, because I think I would have been guided by what advice I was getting... Don't forget that this is a once-in-a-century event, we're doing things, we're enacting policy that has never been enacted in our [lifetimes].' Asked if he 'pushed back' against official advice, the former PM added: 'The short answer is no... I didn't do that and ­perhaps with hindsight I should have done.'

He said this was partly the ­reason for the delay between March 4, 2020, when Sir Chris told him he must consider interventions, and March 12, when the first ­restrictions came in.

He said: 'The issue was that by going hard, going early, which later became the mantra... you risked bounce back and ­behavioural fatigue and yet more behavioural fatigue as a ­consequence of bounce back.'

But with 'hindsight' Mr Johnson conceded that he should have banned mass gatherings earlier in March 2020 as one of the first ­interventions after being shown a graph around this time that the NHS could become 'overwhelmed'. Instead, gatherings such as the Cheltenham Festival went ahead on March 10.

'We didn't rely on herd immunity'

Mr Johnson denied so-called 'herd immunity' was ever his Government's strategy for dealing with the virus. He said chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance accidentally 'set a hare running by mistake' at a press conference on March 12 when Mr Johnson informed the nation of the seriousness of the situation.

Mr Johnson said: 'Patrick at the time said the idea was to flatten the curve, suppress the virus, with some measure of herd immunity by ­September being I think a good outcome.

'At that moment, people all pricked up their ears and said 'are they trying to allow this thing to pass through the population unchecked?'... which is not what we wanted, not what Patrick meant and we had to do quite a lot of work to clear it up.'

He added: 'Our strategy was to suppress the curve and to keep the [reproduction rate] below 1 as much as we could. Herd immunity was going to be, we hoped, a by-product of that campaign which might be very long. [Patrick] set a hare running by mistake... Patrick did a huge job to clear it up.'

March 23: 'Right' date to lockdown

Mr Johnson defended not locking down before March 23 despite a 'heart-to-heart' with Sir Chris on March 4 about needing to impose restrictions. Those options did not include a full lockdown.

A week earlier, then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock had warned in a COBRA meeting not attended by Mr Johnson that the 'reasonable worse case scenario' planning assumptions 'looked close to becoming the reality', pointing to the prospect of hundreds of thousands dying. And submissions warning of the situation in Mr Johnson's Red Box returns started to 'mount in tempo' at this point, he told the inquiry.

But the former PM said the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had 'lacked' some data which meant lockdown wasn't imposed sooner.

He added: 'It was the sudden appreciation that we were much further along the curve than they'd thought, we weren't four weeks behind France or Italy, we were a couple of weeks, maybe less, and they were clearly wrong in their initial estimation, we were clearly wrong in our estimation of where the peak was going to be.

'And so that penny dropped – we realised that on the evening of 13 into 14 [March 2020], and then we acted. But I think once we decided to act, I think it was pretty fast from flash to bang.'

He also defended not delaying lockdown to see if other restrictions imposed on March 12, 16 and 20 worked in slowing the spread of the virus sufficiently. He said: 'I have to say I doubt that, but I don't know. 'I think the virus was, is, extremely contagious. I think that it was going to [take] a pretty nasty curve whatever we did.'

'Feuding' in No 10 made no difference

Mr Johnson conceded there was 'feuding' between officials but denied it had 'the slightest difference to our processes or decision-making'.

Asked about allegations by former advisers and officials who claimed there was a 'toxic culture' at No 10 when he was Prime Minister, Mr Johnson likened it to the previous governments of Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.

A key figure has been Dominic Cummings, Johnson's former and now-estranged chief adviser who was accused in October of ­'aggressive, foul-mouthed and misogynistic' abuse towards ­others in government.

And Mr Johnson accused Mr Cummings of a 'orgy of ­narcissism' over repeated ­complaints about the speed and quality of the response to the pandemic.

Asked by Mr Keith about 'toxicity' and 'misogyny' in Downing Street, Mr Johnson said: 'I knew some people were difficult, I didn't know how difficult they were, clearly, but I thought it better for the whole country to have a ­disputatious culture in No 10 rather than one that was quietly acquiescent to whatever I or the scientists said.'

He said he had apologised to former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara over a message in which Mr Cummings referred to her as 'that c***' and said he would 'handcuff her and escort her' from Downing Street.

The former PM added: 'If you had the views of the Mandarinate about the Thatcher government in unexpurgated WhatsApps, I think you would have found that they were pretty fruity... I think that the worst vice would have been to have had an operation where everybody was so deferential and so reluctant to make waves that they never expressed their opinion.'

He said that the atmosphere inside Downing Street had in fact been 'creatively useful'.

Questioning the case for lockdown

The former PM dismissed ­accusations by his former chief advisor Dominic Cummings that he was a 'trolley' who constantly veered off course and couldn't decide what to do.

The inquiry was shown Whats App messages from March 19, 2020, in which Mr Cummings complained that Mr Johnson couldn't fully 'absorb' what he was being told and kept countering with the downsides about locking down.

Asked about the messages, Mr Johnson said: 'What he's referring to is a conversation with the ­Chancellor where I'm talking about the costs, and how negligent it would have been, totally negligent, not to have such a conversation, not to have gone through the ­economic ramifications of what I was proposing to do.'

He added: 'I've got the ­Chancellor with me saying that there's a risk to the UK bond markets and our ability to raise sovereign debt.

'This matters massively to people in this country, it matters ­massively to the livelihoods of people up and down the land. I have to go through these arguments and that is what I was doing.'

'Hancock was doing a good job'

Mr Johnson used his evidence ­session to defend keeping the then Health Secretary in post despite being told by Mr Cummings and then Cabinet Secretary Mark ­Sedwill to sack him in the summer of 2020.

Mr Keith asked whether Mr ­Johnson was aware that Sir Patrick and others believed the Health Department to be 'in chaos' and that they had 'very real concerns' about Mr Hancock continuing to lead it.

The former Prime Minister replied: 'I was aware, yes certainly, that the [health department] was under fire from loads of people, but that was hardly surprising because the country was going through a horrific pandemic...

'You've got a lot of talented, ­confident, sometimes egotistical people crushed with anxiety about what's going on in their country, racked secretly with self-doubt and self-criticism, and who ­externalise that by criticising others and it's human nature...

'My judgement was that Matt was on the whole doing a good job in very difficult circumstances and there was no advantage in moving him.'

Pressed by Mr Keith on why he didn't 'take a grip' of the situation by taking action to address the concerns raised, Mr Johnson ­reiterated: 'He was extremelyable, he was on top of thesubject and whatever hisfailings may or may not have been, I didn't see any advantage tothe country at a ­critical time in moving him in exchange for someone else.'

Sorry he said 'Long covid is b*****Ks'

Mr Johnson apologised for describing Long Covid as 'b******s'. On a document from October 2020 which described symptoms of the condition, the then-prime minister scribbled 'b*****ks' and 'this is Gulf War Syndrome stuff'.

Mr Keith said: 'You were I think less sympathetic to the needs of those persons suffering from long-term sequelae, that is to say, ­suffering from the condition (known) as Long Covid.

'You questioned for quite some time whether or not that condition truly existed and you equated it to Gulf War Syndrome repeatedly, is that fair?'

Mr Johnson replied: 'Not really, no. The words that I scribbled in the margins of submissions about long Covid have obviously been now publicised and I'm sure that they have caused hurt and offence to the huge numbers of people who do indeed suffer from that syndrome.

'And I regret very much using that language and I should have thought about the possibility of future publication.'