Rishi Sunak is seeking a route to Rwanda for migrants that is legally, practically and politically navigable.
Legally, because he has to find a way to address the concerns of the Supreme Court, who said his earlier plan was unlawful.
Practically, because he wants migrants on planes to Rwanda before the general election.
And politically because he has to simultaneously persuade those broadly on the left of his party who fret about any ideas they might regard as extreme and those on the right who fret he doesn't have the stomach to go far enough.
And the blunt truth is we now know his now former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, thinks he's destined to fail, again. He had been talking to the prime minister for around a week about his concerns - and now he has resigned.
This matters because cutting illegal immigration matters to hundreds of Conservative MPs and millions of voters.
It matters, too, because having been a cork on Conservative chaos for much of his year and a bit as prime minister - in contrast to what came immediately before under Liz Truss and Boris Johnson - a moment like this has the potential to send that cork whizzing over the No10 garden wall.
Senior figures are musing privately that they wouldn't be surprised if Mr Sunak ended up facing a confidence vote from his own MPs.
"Lots of MPs are concerned about their seats and the polls, and they're rapidly forming the view the current management is not performing and will not deliver an election win," one senior Tory MP said.
"The danger is we get a confidence vote by accident because if one MP says 'I'm putting my letter in' others do too'."
The MP added: "I just want him to do better and listen to us. I actually want him to win the next general election, but frankly to please both wings of the party on an issue like this is impossible, and that's where leadership is important."
Another told me: "Rishi wouldn't lose a confidence vote. But I wouldn't be surprised if he faced one."
EPA
A recurring theme from many Conservative MPs in private is a fear the leadership lacks a coherent strategy.
And all this in the very week the government was trying to make the case it was making progress on migration.
Sources would whisper that gone were the fireworks of Suella Braverman - the former home secretary - and now came the action.
And yet at the very moment the current Home Secretary James Cleverly was in Kigali, rebooting the government's plan to send some migrants to Rwanda, Mr Jenrick was telling the prime minister why it wouldn't work.
So, what happens next? Does Mr Jenrick's resignation galvanise a wider revolt that spins away into something perilous for the prime minister? After all, he was the in-house expert on immigration who has left because he reckons the new Rwanda plan is hopeless.
Or do Conservative MPs conclude yet another blast of the collywobbles would be unforgivably indulgent?
Excitable chatter is the currency of exchange at Westminster and the chatter about confidence votes and the like might not come to anything.
But the chatter is a measure of the mood among many Conservatives.
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.
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 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
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.”
Boris Johnson: Where is he now and is he still MP?
Speaking outside Downing Street at the time before stepping down as PM, Mr Johnson thanked those who voted Conservative and said the reason he fought so long to remain in office was because he thought it was “my job, my duty and my obligation to you”.
The key takeaways from Boris Johnson at the covid inquiry
But, while his first evidence session saw less mud-slinging than others’, notably Dominic Cummings, there have still been several striking revelations.
Johnson on Manchester ‘treated differently’ to Liverpool
Boris Johnson was told that one of Sir Patrick Vallance’s diary entries suggested that in relation to Manchester and Andy Burnham, a Covid-S meeting drew a distinction between the support and measures for Manchester as opposed to Liverpool for “nakedly political reasons”.
It was put by Hugo Keith KC that on the local leadership a “view was taken about how cooperative it was being” and Manchester would be “treated differently” to Liverpool.
Mr Johnson said: “I don’t remember that at all. I think that Liverpool, certainly the people were heroic in trying to get mass testing going. And again, there was terrific hardship because of the lockdowns, but they were vital to the campaign to get mass testing going.”
Johnson calls for changes in way decisions are made at heart of government
Boris Johnson earlier called for changes in the way decisions are made at the heart of government.
He told the inquiry: “What I would submit is that, for future pandemics, there needs to be more clarity about which are the debating, the discussion meetings and which are the decision-making meetings.
“What would happen is that I would be presented with a problem and then within the space of half an hour, we would have got to the solution. And then we’d have to do it all again in a separate format or through the Cabinet or whatever.”
The former prime minister told the inquiry: “To be absolutely frank, I don’t think if I was sitting in a Covid O (operations) or Covid S (strategy) I could have told you at any given moment whether it was a Covid 0 or a Covid S, I was just sitting in meeting after meeting, trying to deal with the problem.
“That was the most effective way to do it. You needed to be sitting permanently on the bridge, trying to deal with it all.”
Former prime minister Boris Johnson giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry
Robert Jenrick has resigned as immigration minister, saying the government's emergency Rwanda legislation "does not go far enough".
He said "stronger protections" were needed to end "the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme".
The government said the bill, unveiled earlier, made clear in UK law Rwanda was a safe country for asylum seekers.
But it stops short of what some on the Tory right were demanding.
In his resignation letter to Rishi Sunak, Mr Jenrick said the prime minister had "moved towards my position" on the emergency legislation.
"Nevertheless, I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success."
Mr Jenrick added that the bill was "a triumph of hope over experience".
In response, the prime minister described Mr Jenrick's resignation as "disappointing" and "based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation".
"If we were to oust the courts entirely, we would collapse the entire scheme," Mr Sunak said.
"The Rwandan government have been clear that they would not accept the UK basing this scheme on legislation that could be considered in breach of our international law obligations."
The plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda aim to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats.
But the scheme has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges and no asylum seekers have been sent to the east African country from the UK so far.
Mr Jenrick, who had supported Mr Sunak's leadership campaign, said the emergency legislation was the "last opportunity" to prove the government would do "whatever it takes" to stop small boat crossings.
Losing a minister who was once a key ally is a blow for Mr Sunak, in a week when the government had been trying to get on the front foot on migration.
Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "It is a sign of the total chaos in the Tory party and the complete collapse of Rishi Sunak's leadership that even while he is sitting in the Commons for the announcement of his new Rwanda plan, his own immigration minister is resigning because he doesn't think it will work."
Senior figures are musing privately that they would not be surprised if Mr Sunak ended up facing a confidence vote from his own MPs.
Although it may not come to that, it is a measure of the bleak mood among many Conservatives.
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Reports of Mr Jenrick's resignation first started swirling after the government published the draft bill.
The legislation aims to address the concerns of the UK's Supreme Court, which last month ruled plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful.
The bill - which must be approved by Parliament - orders the courts to ignore key sections of the Human Rights Act in an attempt to sidestep the Supreme Court's existing judgement.
It also orders the courts to ignore other British laws or international rules - such as the international Refugee Convention - that stand in the way of deportations to Rwanda.
However, it does not go as far as some Tory MPs wanted.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her supporters had called for it to override the entire Human Rights Act, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Refugee Convention, and all other international law.
The bill allows ministers to ignore any emergency order from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to temporarily halt a flight to Rwanda while an individual case is still being considered.
But it stops short of providing powers to dismiss the whole of the ECHR.
It also allows migrants to legally challenge their removal to Rwanda on specific individual grounds, if they can prove that being put on a plane would leave them at real risk of serious harm.
A source close to Mrs Braverman said the bill was "fatally flawed" and would be "bogged down in the courts for months and months".
However, if the government had agreed to her demands this would have provoked a backlash from centrist Tories.
The One Nation group, which is made up of more than 100 Tory MPs, had warned that overriding the ECHR was a "red line" for a number of Conservatives.
The group cautiously welcomed "the government's decision to continue to meet the UK's international commitments which uphold the rule of law" but added that it would seek legal advice "about concerns and the practicalities of the bill".
The draft legislation concedes that it may not be compatible with the ECHR.
This means government lawyers have told ministers the measures could still be legally challenged.
Who is Robert Jenrick?
The former solicitor became a Conservative MP when he was elected in the 2014 by-election in the Nottinghamshire seat of Newark.
He was promoted into the cabinet as housing secretary in 2019 by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Mr Jenrick, a 41-year-old father-of-three, also briefly served as a junior health minister in Liz Truss's government, despite backing Mr Sunak for the Tory leadership.
As immigration minister he consistently pushed for a harder line on legal and illegal immigration, expressing frustration at the high levels of both.
Robert Jenrick has resigned as immigration minister, saying the government's emergency Rwanda legislation "does not go far enough".
He said "stronger protections" were needed to end "the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme".
The government said the bill, unveiled earlier, made clear in UK law Rwanda was a safe country for asylum seekers.
But it stops short of what some on the Tory right were demanding.
In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Jenrick said: "In our discussions on the proposed emergency legislation you have moved towards my position, for which I am grateful.
"Nevertheless, I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success."
He added that the bill was "a triumph of hope over experience".
In his reply to the letter, the prime minister said Mr Jenrick's resignation was "disappointing given we both agree on the ends, getting flights off to Rwanda so that we can stop the boats".
Rishi Sunak said he was confident his Rwanda plan would work, adding: "I fear that your departure is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation
"If we were to oust the courts entirely, we would collapse the entire scheme.
"The Rwandan government have been clear that they would not accept the UK basing this scheme on legislation that could be considered in breach of our international law obligations."
The plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda aim to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats.
But the scheme has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges and no asylum seekers have been sent to the east African country from the UK so far.
Mr Jenrick said the emergency legislation was the "last opportunity" to prove the government would do "whatever it takes" to stop small boat crossings.
"But in its current drafting it does not go far enough," he said.
He added: "I refuse to be yet another politician who makes promises on immigration to the British public but does not keep them."
Mr Jenrick, who had supported Mr Sunak's leadership campaign, did not criticise the prime minister personally and praised him for stabilising the country "against strong headwinds".
He added that the PM "will retain my full support on the backbenches".
Losing a minister who was once a key ally is a blow for Mr Sunak, in a week when the government had been trying to get on the front foot on migration.
Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "It is a sign of the total chaos in the Tory party and the complete collapse of Rishi Sunak's leadership that even while he is sitting in the Commons for the announcement of his new Rwanda plan, his own immigration minister is resigning because he doesn't think it will work."
Senior figures are musing privately that they would not be surprised if Mr Sunak ended up facing a confidence vote from his own MPs.
Although it may not come to that, it is a measure of the bleak mood among many Conservatives.
This video can not be played
To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Reports of Mr Jenrick's resignation started swirling after the government published the draft bill.
The legislation aims to address the concerns of the Supreme Court, which last month ruled plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful.
The bill, which must be voted on by Parliament, orders the courts to ignore key sections of the Human Rights Act in an attempt to sidestep the Supreme Court's existing judgement.
It also orders the courts to ignore other British laws or international rules - such as the international Refugee Convention - that stand in the way of deportations to Rwanda.
However, it does not go as far as some Tory MPs wanted.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her supporters had called for it to override the entire Human Rights Act, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Refugee Convention, and all other international law.
Mr Jenrick had been an ally of Mrs Braverman when she was in government.
The bill allows ministers to ignore any emergency order from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to temporarily halt a flight to Rwanda while an individual case is still being considered.
But it stops short of providing powers to dismiss the whole of the ECHR.
It also allows migrants to legally challenge their removal to Rwanda on specific individual grounds, if they can prove that being put on a plane would leave them at real risk of serious harm.
A source close to Mrs Braverman said the bill was "fatally flawed" and would be "bogged down in the courts for months and months".
However, if the government had agreed to her demands this would have provoked a backlash from centrist Tories.
The One Nation group, which is made up of more than 100 Tory MPs, had warned that overriding the ECHR was a "red line" for a number of Conservatives.
The group cautiously welcomed "the government's decision to continue to meet the UK's international commitments which uphold the rule of law".
But it added that it would be seeking legal advice "about concerns and the practicalities of the bill".
The draft legislation concedes that it may not be compatible with the ECHR.
This means government lawyers have told ministers the measures could still be legally challenged.
Who is Robert Jenrick?
Mr Jenrick was a solicitor before he became the Conservative MP for Newark in 2014 in a by-election.
Boris Johnson promoted him to the cabinet as housing secretary in 2019.
The 41-year-old father-of-three briefly served as a junior health minister in Liz Truss's government, despite backing Mr Sunak for the Tory leadership.
As Mr Sunak's immigration minister he consistently pushed for a harder line on legal and illegal immigration, expressing frustration at the high levels of both.
Lady Hallett starts by expressing her “concern” about the reports in the papers about what Boris Johnson will say.
She says what witnesses say in witness statements is supposed to be confidential until those statements are published. She goes on:
I wish to remind all those involved in the inquiry process they must maintain this confidentiality so as to allow the sharing of materials prior to hearings between those most involved in the inquiry process. Failing to respect confidentiality undermines the inquiry’s ability to do its job fairly, effectively and independently.
As we report this morning, there has been plenty of coverage in the papers about what Boris Johnson is likely to say to the Covid inquiry. In fact, there has been more advance leaking than you get with a budget. Some of this seems to be authorised, although probably not all of it. (If the editor wants a story on what Johnson is expected to say, a resourceful journalist will provide one, regardless of whether or not the Johnson camp are cooperating.)
If Johnson is trying to influence Lady Hallett, the inquiry chair, he is bound to fail; you can’t spin a judge. But if his team has been engaged in a pre-briefing operation, as seems likely, their target will be public opinion, not the inquiry team.
Here is a round-up of what the papers have been saying.
On Saturday
The pre-hearing coverage kicked off with this story in the Times, in which Steven Swinford, Chris Smyth and Oliver Wright said Johnson would admit to mistakes. They said:
Boris Johnson will next week admit that he “unquestionably made mistakes” over Covid but insist that the decisions he took ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
In his evidence to the Covid public inquiry the former prime minister is expected to issue an unreserved apology and say that he and his government were initially far too complacent and vastly underestimated the risks posed by the virus.
He will argue that he had a “basic confidence that things would turn out alright” on the “fallacious logic” that previous health threats such as BSE and Sars had not proven as catastrophic as feared.
However, he is expected to say that, overall, the government succeeded in its central aim of preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed by making the “right decisions at the right times”.
On Sunday
There was plenty more on Sunday, of which the best article was probably Tim Shipman’s in the Sunday Times. He said Johnson would argue that the first lockdown was delayed because scientists argued that “behavioural fatigue” would stop people complying with lockdown measures after a while, which meant they should not start too early. Shipman said:
Johnson has spent, aides say, almost a year preparing for his appearance in front of Baroness Hallett and her panel. He will make the case that many of the explosive WhatsApp exchanges that have left his government looking like it was in the middle of a civil war were simply conversations around the issues, or “dark humour” — but that the key decisions were made in formal meetings based on this official advice. One minister from the Johnson government who has read his written evidence said: “I think he gives a good account of himself, actually.”
In the Sun Sophia Sleigh also said Johnson would seek to deflect blame onto the scientists. She said:
An ally of the ex-PM told The Sun on Sunday: “The only trolley involved were the trolleys full of vaccines Boris helped deliver for the UK. Boris only changed his views when the scientific advice changed. The experts kept changing their tune on issues.”
And Glen Owenin the Mail on Sunday said Johnson wants more focus on whether the Covid virus was invented by the Chinese.
On Monday
On Monday Ben Riley-Smithin the Daily Telegraph said Johnson would deny Dominic Cummings’ claim that in February 2020 he was on holiday at Chevening trying to finish his book about Shakespeare instead of focusing on Covid.
On Tuesday
On Tuesday Steve Swinford and Chris Smythin the Times said Johnson would suggest that Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was responsible for the first lockdown being delayed. They said:
Boris Johnson will claim that he delayed implementing the first lockdown on the advice of Sir Chris Whitty amid concerns that people would tire of the restrictions and flout the rules.
The former prime minister’s statement to the Covid inquiry is expected to say that given the “massive disbenefits” of lockdown it was “obviously right” to ensure that it was not implemented too soon.
He will highlight a series of warnings from Whitty, the chief medical officer, about the risks of locking down too early.
In the Telegraph Ben Riley-Smith and Blathnaid Corless said much the same thing, although they also quoted a source saying Johnson would not be “blaming” the scientists. They said:
Asked how the former prime minister would respond to [criticism about the timing of the first lockdown] an ally of Mr Johnson told The Telegraph that he would point to shifting scientific advice.
The source said: “The scientific advice was right up until the last minute that lockdowns were the wrong policy and herd immunity was the right policy. People might get lockdown fatigue so you had to do it at the right time.”
The source added: “We are not seeking to blame the scientists. They were doing a good job. It is more about getting an accurate recall on how little certainty there was around lockdown in February and March 2020. The scientists have to deal with the changing facts.”
In a recent edition of his The Rest is Politics podcast, which he co-hosts with Rory Stewart, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief, recalled giving evidence to one of the Iraq inquiries. (I don’t think he was clear whether it was Hutton or Chilcot.) There were going to be protesters outside, and Campbell said he was offered the chance of going in by the back door. He refused, he said, and insisted on going in through the main entrance, ignoring the shouting.
This is what he posted on X this morning about Johnson dodging the protests at the Covid inquiry this morning.
What a coward. When the pandemic came he couldn’t be arsed to get from his bed in Chequers to Cobra meetings. But when there is a risk of being confronted by the consequences of his inactions he sneaks in as early as he can. Contemptible
Asked about Boris Johnson arriving three hours early for the Covid inquiry this morning, Chris Philp, the policing minister, joked “it’s the first time Boris has ever been early for anything”.
Outside the Covid inquiry representatives of families who lost loved ones during the pandemic are holding a mini press conference ahead of Boris Johnson’s evidence. Aamer Anwar, lead solicitor for the Scottish Covid Bereaved, was the first speaker. He said the evidence presented to the inquiry so far had presented “a deadly culture of impunity, of incompetence, of arrogance and blaming everyone else but themselves”.
UPDATE: Anwar said:
Boris Johnson is expected to issue an apology this morning.
Yet he will claim he saved thousands of lives.
For many of the bereaved that will be a grotesque distortion of the truth.
In Boris Johnson’s words, instead of solving a national crisis, his government presided over a total disgusting orgy of narcissism.
He did let the bodies pile up and the elderly were treated as toxic waste.
As a result, over a quarter of a million people died from Covid. They cannot speak for themselves but their families, the bereaved and all those impacted by Covid deserve the truth today.
Good morning. Boris Johnson has never been known for his punctuality. As a journalist he was famous for submitting his articles well beyond the deadline, and as PM he was not one of those ministers obsessed with starting and finishing meetings on time.
But this morning he arrived three hours early at the Covid inquiry, where he is due to start a two-day evidence session at 10am. Perhaps he’s got some last-minute reading to do. The fact that he managed to get in before relatives of people who died in the pandemic, who have been outside protesting at some hearings, were present may just have been a fortuitous bonus.
Henry Zeffman from the BBC has a picture.
When he left office, Johnson’s supporters used to claim that, on Covid, he got “all the big calls right”. More recently some of the briefing by his allies has settled on the line that he got most of the big calls right. The next two days will help to determine how the inquiry – and history – assesses his performance as a pandemic PM, and the final judgment is likely to be a bit closer to the “he didn’t get everything wrong” category.
As Peter Walker, Pippa Crerar and Ben Quinn report in their preview story, Johnson has been criticised for the extensive briefing about what he is going to say that has already appeared in the papers.
I will be focusing mostly on the Covid inquiry today. But I will break away to cover PMQs at noon, and if there are any other big political stories, they will feature too. We are still waiting for the government to finalise and publish its legislation intended to enable Rwanda deportation flights to go ahead, and that is expected before the end of the week.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
