Covid Inquiry: what was Boris Johnson's defence?

It was still dark when Boris Johnson turned up for his first day of testimony at the Covid Inquiry last Wednesday, said Ian Dunt in The i Paper. 

The former PM is late for everything, yet that day, he'd made sure to arrive three hours early - presumably to avoid coming face to face with the protesters who'd gather later that morning, some holding signs branding him a murderer. Once his testimony finally began, however, there were no great surprises. 

As Baroness Hallett implied in her opening statement, Johnson had undermined the inquiry by seemingly leaking to friendly journalists what he planned to say. So we knew that he'd start with an apology; he was "deeply sorry", he said, about the "pain and the loss and the suffering" of Covid's victims; and as briefed, he admitted that mistakes had been made. But what mistakes, he was asked. From that point, it was the usual Johnson waffle. Asked, for instance, why he had not attended five Cobra meetings, in early 2020, he replied that Covid hadn't entered his consciousness as a potential national disaster. Yet the last of those five meetings was in late February – more than three weeks after the Italian government had declared a state of emergency.

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'Uncharacteristically restrained'

Johnson is said to have spent almost a year preparing for his appearance; and as he was interrogated by lead counsel Hugo Keith KC, he stuck assiduously to his script, said Joe Murphy in The Independent. His first priority was saving lives, he intoned. The expert advice was mixed. He only said appalling things about old people (they'd had "a good innings") because he was playing devil's advocate; and he'd only asked stupid questions about letting the virus "rip" because he was the sole "layperson in the room", and wanted to test the replies on behalf of others. Meanwhile, the relatives in the public seating hissed their disapproval: "Shame on you!" one person called out; "How do you sleep at night, Boris?" demanded another.

Throughout, Johnson remained uncharacteristically restrained, said Tom Peck in The Times. He resisted the urge to make jokes, and kept his feelings in check. Even when four people held up a sign reading "The Dead Can't Hear Your Apology", he looked on almost respectfully. Yet what arguments could he really put up, asked Pippa Crerar in The Guardian. Even before he arrived, the inquiry had painted – in Keith's words – "an appalling picture of incompetence and disarray" at the heart of his Government.

A string of advisors had castigated his weak and vacillating leadership. His strategy was to minimise the negative headlines, which meant he could only offer evasion (he has forgotten a lot of meetings) and defensiveness: asked about his team's expletive-laden WhatsApp messages, for instance, he argued that if Mrs Thatcher's warring ministers had used WhatsApp, theirs would have been "fruity" too.

'The wrong PM at the wrong time'

To be fair, "many of his defences were valid", said The Independent. Covid was an unprecedented crisis. He was open to a wide range of expert opinion. And he did broadly follow the advice of his scientific advisers, especially at the start. So where is the evidence of his failed leadership, wondered the Daily Mail. The scientific advice was confused and often contradictory; with so much at stake, ministers, civil servants and advisers inevitably disagreed as to the best course to follow; tempers frayed and language became "salty". In high-pressure environments, that happens. Johnson has admitted that he made mistakes, but his defence for being slow to impose a lockdown was "robust".

He had to weigh up the likely impact on the economy, education and the nation's physical and mental health. These costs have, in fact, proven to be "ruinous". Yet the inquiry seems to have taken it as "Holy Writ" that lockdowns were the right approach. To justify its anticipated cost of up to £200m, we need the Covid Inquiry to be a rigorous investigation of what worked, so that Britain can be better prepared for the next pandemic. Instead, it feels like a trial with politicians in the dock, and one that is raking over very familiar ground.

Certainly, Boris Johnson's limitations were clear long before the inquiry started, said Matthew Flinders on The Conversation. "Attention to detail, serious reflection, stability, were never part of his skillset." He was, as one adviser put it, "the wrong PM at the wrong time". If the lesson is that we need to elect better leaders, it's a fairly obvious one. But public inquires are not just about learning; they are also about catharsis, about making sense of a crisis to heal a fractured nation. Dealing with an angry public is not easy, however, and the risk of this inquiry is that it makes things worse by fuelling anti-political sentiment. It may be quietly working on an analysis of the Government's preparedness and performance, but all we are hearing about is our politicians' incompetence, venality and buck-passing. How will that effect public trust in government when it comes to the next pandemic?