Boris Johnson denies deleting Whatsapp messages ahead of Covid inquiry
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Boris Johnson is to face a second day of grilling at the covid inquiry on Thursday.
During his first day of testimony, Mr Johnson’s apology to the nation was interrupted by four people who staged a protest in the hearing room.
Mr Johnson arrived three hours early on Wednesday morning to dodge the protesters waiting outside. During the day he admitted the pandemic’s impact on the NHS had “bewildered” him. He also acknowledged the government’s policy appeared “incoherent” on the timing of actions in light of the graph in March 2020 suggesting the NHS could be overwhelmed.
Mr Johnson stumbled over his words as the inquiry heard he lost 5,000 WhatsApp messages between January 2020 and June 2020.
He also implied the mad cow disease crisis in Britain made him sceptical of the threat of coronavirus as it “wasn’t nearly as fatal as people had originally believed”.
Johnson to return to inquiry for second day
Boris Johnson is set to return to the covid inquiry for a second and final day of evidence on Thursday.
Mr Johnson spent a full day addressing his handling of the pandemic on Wednesday.
During his testimony he admitted ‘underestimating’ threat of Covid in early days of pandemic.
The former prime minister is the most senior politician to address the inquiry to date, following an appearance by former health secretary Matt Hancock last week.
Boris Johnson was the wrong prime minister at the wrong time
Read our editorial after the first day of Boris Johnson’s evidence at the inquiry: The words of Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s former director of communications, hung over his old boss’s evidence to the Covid inquiry. “Covid,” he said, “was the wrong crisis for this prime minister’s skillset.”
He can say that again. But he does not need to, because so many other people are saying it, too – including, by implication, Mr Johnson himself, whose wavering and inconsistent evidence today confirmed the impression of him as someone incapable of making up his mind.
The inquiry heard from the politician who wrote an article arguing one side of a case and then another article arguing the other side. There are great advantages in intellectual openness, and in testing the strengths of different arguments from different viewpoints, and Mr Johnson always displays a great deal of pluralism. Unfortunately, he neither seems to have focused sufficiently on the detail, nor to have decided a broad approach and stuck to it.
Even now, more than three years after the events being inquired into, he seems unable to decide what he thought. He started with a patently insincere apology, saying how sorry he was that people had died. He then admitted that he had made mistakes (unspecified), without actually apologising for them. He then veered between cautious defiance in defence of his record and a show of contrition, at one point holding his head and appearing to be close to tears.
Pictures of protesters that met Boris Johnson outside inquiry
‘No guarantee’ sacking Hancock would have led to better replacement
Boris Johnson considered removing Matt Hancock from his job as health secretary at the height of the pandemic but there was no guarantee he would be “trading up” if he put someone else in.
The former prime minister backed Mr Hancock at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, saying he had done a “good job in very difficult circumstances” as the Government struggled to get to grips with Covid-19 in 2020.
The former health secretary has been criticised by a number of witnesses at the Covid-19 inquiry, including Dominic Cummings and former civil service chief Lord Sedwill.
The inquiry heard that in one WhatsApp exchange with the permanent secretary at No 10, Simon Case, who is the current Cabinet Secretary, Lord Sedwill joked it was necessary to remove Mr Hancock to “save lives and protect the NHS”.
WhatsApp messages shared with the inquiry also revealed that former top Number 10 adviser Mr Cummings repeatedly pushed Mr Johnson to sack Mr Hancock.
At one stage, Mr Cummings claimed Mr Hancock had “lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it”.
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock previously found to have broken rules around post-ministerial jobs
‘He only apologised because he got found out'
Commenting on the remarks, Sammie McFarland, chief executive of Long Covid Kids, said: “Boris Johnson didn’t apologise for using the language because it was wrong; he only apologised because he got found out and his actions have caused years of bullying and stigma for people suffering from Long Covid.
“We need a sincere apology.
“But more than that we need action and the inquiry to create meaningful and impactful recommendations going forward.
“Johnson also said that people think they are unwell. He needs to recognise that this is a real disease and a consequence of the pandemic alongside the unfortunate deaths and hospitalisations.”
Former prime minister Boris Johnson said he ‘regretted’ his remarks about long Covid
Mr Johnson ‘meant no disrespect’ with Gulf War comments
Mr Johnson told the inquiry that he only got a “proper” paper on long Covid in the summer of 2021.
Mr Keith told the inquiry that Mr Johnson “continued to make disparaging references to whether or not this is Gulf War syndrome stuff” in February 2021, and again in June 2021.
The inquiry has also previously been shown a WhatsApp message from February 2021, where Mr Johnson said: “Do we really believe in long Covid? Why can’t we hedge it more? I bet it’s complete Gulf War Syndrome stuff.”
Mr Johnson told the hearing: “It’s no disrespect to long Covid patients and I saw in the victim impact videos are some of the victims of long Covid, I can imagine what a dreadful thing is.
“But there are also, with Gulf War syndrome, many people who have terrible symptoms for a very long time.
“There are also people who think they may be suffering, I think this is the now accepted, from something associated with the Gulf War, but who are not in fact suffering from something associated with the Gulf War.
“So what I was trying to say was ‘where is the, where is the line’? And ‘please can someone explain to me what this is?’
“Because I was getting anecdotal accounts of people who were suffering from it, and I wanted to be able to say what we understood it to be and what we were doing about it.
“And what we were doing about it is fighting Covid, because the way to stop long Covid is to, is to stop Covid.”
Boris Johnson ‘regrets’ long Covid remarks
Boris Johnson has said he “regrets” describing long Covid as “bollocks”.
But charities representing people with the condition said the former prime minister “only apologised because he got found out”.
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry heard that Mr Johnson made a number of “disparaging” remarks about the condition during his time in office.
A document from October 2020 described symptoms of the condition, beside which he wrote “bollocks” and “this is Gulf War Syndrome”.
Counsel to the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, said: “You were I think less sympathetic to the needs of those persons suffering from long-term sequela, 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.”
Boris Johnson during a visit to a hospital during the pandemic
Families demand answers from former PM
Mert Dogus, 21, whose father died of Covid, said Mr Johnson “should be giving answers for some of his actions” at the Covid inquiry.
His father, cab driver Haci Ali Dogus, 49, died in March 2020, leaving behind his wife and two sons.
In response to Mr Johnson’s apology for the “suffering of the Covid victims”, Mr Dogus, a student at Brunel University London, said “I’m not surprised, he kind of owes it.
“Obviously, he was in control of the country at the time, so naturally, he should be apologising for those who are lost.”
Mr Dogus said Mr Johnson “should be giving answers for some of his actions” and it is “good for us to see his reasoning behind” decisions that Mr Johnson’s government took during the Covid pandemic.
In response Mr Johnson said at the inquiry that he was “not sure” whether Government decision-making had led to “materially” a larger number of excess deaths as a result of the pandemic, Mr Dogus said: “He can’t really say that.”
He said: “Boris waited, and he waited and waited and then obviously it spread a lot more and then it turned into this huge thing.”
“If you caught it whilst it was early, I think it wouldn’t have been as bad.”
Mr Dogus added that prohibited gatherings by Mr Johnson and government and Conservative Party staff during the Covid-19 pandemic was “a slap in the face to all of us, who have obviously lost members of our families”.
Bereaved family members call Johnson’s apology at Covid inquiry ‘meaningless’
Family members of people who died during the pandemic have criticised Boris Johnson after he admitted his government “underestimated” the threat of coronavirus.
Appearing at the Covid-19 Inquiry in London on Wednesday, Mr Johnson apologised for “the pain and the loss and the suffering of the Covid victims” but said he was “not sure” whether Government decision-making had led to “materially” a larger number of excess deaths.
Jane Basham, 61, whose sister Sandra died in January 2021 after contracting coronavirus, branded Mr Johnson’s apology “meaningless”, adding she held him responsible for her sibling’s death aged 61.
Sandra Basham had been caring for older people in their homes near Dartford, Kent, during the pandemic before she was admitted to hospital, with Ms Basham adding her family did not see her because they were taking the virus seriously.
Ms Basham, of Ipswich, Suffolk, said: “His apology is meaningless to me, and many of us who are bereaved.
“If Boris Johnson was truly sorry then he would have delivered a public inquiry when it was first requested and not forced a group of traumatised bereaved relatives to have to fight for it.
“He would have shown humility and met the bereaved families who stand outside the inquiry every day rather than scuttling in before dawn.”
Jane Basham with sister Sandra
In pictures: Protesters outside Covid inquiry on first day of Johnson’s evidence
People hold placards as they protest outside the Covid Inquiry during the testimony by Boris Johnson on Wednesday
A van displaying a protest banner is parked outside the Covid-19 Inquiry in London on Wednesday
People hold banners as they protest after the arrival of Boris Johnson at the Covid Inquiry on Wednesday
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2023-12-07 07:00:00Z
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