Boris Johnson has dismissed the Covid inquiry report that found his government's failure to take the pandemic seriously cost 23,000 lives in the first wave. He called the findings "muddled" and suggested the report should be shredded.
The inquiry led by Baroness Heather Hallett found that Johnson presided over a "toxic and chaotic" Downing Street culture that undermined efforts to deal with the pandemic. The report concluded that bringing in lockdown a week earlier, on March 16, would have cut deaths in the first wave to July "by 48% – equating to approximately 23,000 fewer deaths" in England, according to modelling.
Johnson, who set up the inquiry himself, rejected its conclusions in a Daily Mail column. He wrote: "Some judge has just spent the thick end of £200 million on an inquiry, and what is the upshot? She seems, if anything, to want more lockdowns. She seems to have laid into the previous Tory government for not locking down hard enough or fast enough – just when the rest of the world has been thinking that lockdowns were probably wildly overdone."
The former prime minister called the inquiry "hopelessly incoherent" in a post on X. He said it failed to answer what he called the "two big questions" on Covid – where the virus came from, and whether lockdowns were worthwhile.
Johnson's Defense
On the finding about earlier lockdown timing, Johnson said the inquiry "seems to be totally muddled". He argued that he told people to self-isolate if they had symptoms, work from home and avoid inessential contact a week before the first lockdown.
In his Daily Mail column, he wrote: "I am of course grateful to Lady Hallett for her labours, which have clearly been extensive, and I repeat that I remain full of regret for the things the government I led got wrong and full of sympathy for all those who suffered – whether from the disease or from the steps we took to protect the population. All I can say is that everyone involved was doing our level best, under pretty difficult circumstances, to get it right and to save lives."
He appeared to suggest the report should be shredded, writing: "In the name of freedom, we need to file the 28-point Ukraine plan vertically – and the same, I am afraid, goes for the Hallett report into Covid."
Political Reactions
Former cabinet minister Lord Michael Gove apologized on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I want to, on behalf of the government and the Conservative party, to apologise for mistakes that were made during that period," he said. But he added that in a crisis "the business of government can't be carried out in the manner of a Jane Austen novel".
Johnson's sister Rachel called the report "vindictive rubbish" that painted the former prime minister as a "Grim Reaper" on her LBC show.
The inquiry found that the first and second lockdowns were not inevitable, but the government was left with no choice after failing to implement measures such as social distancing and household quarantine earlier. Not imposing any lockdown at all when it became apparent there was no choice would have "led to an unacceptable loss of life", the report concluded.
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
