London: Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that his government was too slow to grasp the extent of the COVID-19 crisis, though he skirted questions about whether any of his decisions had contributed to the country’s high death toll in the pandemic.
Testifying under oath at Britain’s COVID-19 public inquiry, Johnson acknowledged that “we underestimated the scale and the pace of the challenge” when reports of a new virus began to emerge from China in early 2020.
“The reason for panic was not enough,” he said.
Ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the inquiry last week that he had tried to raise the alarm inside the government, saying thousands of lives could have been saved by putting the country under lockdown a few weeks earlier than the eventual date of March 23, 2020.
The UK enjoyed one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in Europe, as well as one of the continent’s COVID-19 death rates, with the virus recorded as the cause of death for more than 232,000 people.
Johnson conceded that the government had “made mistakes,” but emphasized collective failure rather than his own errors. He said ministers, civil servants and scientific advisers had failed to sound a “loud enough klaxon of alarm” about the virus.
“I have not advised that this is going to require urgent and swift action,” he said.
Grilled by inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith, Johnson acknowledged that he didn’t attend any of the government’s five crisis meetings on the new virus in February 2020, and only “once or twice” looked at meeting minutes from the government’s scientific advisory group.
He said he relied on the “distillate” of his clinical and medical advisers.
Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees, whose father died during the pandemic, said Johnson seemed “relaxed, carefree, chaotic and clueless. “
“It just feels like he was living under a rock,” she said outside the hearing.
Johnson began his testimony with an apology “for the pain, loss and suffering of those suffering from COVID,” but not for his own actions.
Four other people stood outside the courthouse as he spoke, holding signs that read, “The dead don’t listen to their apologies,” before being escorted out by security personnel.
“Inevitably, in trying to manage a very, very complicated pandemic where we had to balance egregious damages in any aspect of the decision, we possibly would have made mistakes,” Johnson said.
“Inevitably, we got some things wrong. I think we were doing the most productive thing we could at the time. “
The former prime minister had arrived at the inquiry in west London at dawn, hours before his court appearance, avoiding a protest by an organisation of grieving relatives, some of whom held photographs of their loved ones.
One banner read, “Let the bodies pile up,” attributed to Johnson through an aide. Another sign read: “Johnson was partying while other people were dying. “
Johnson was ousted from his workplace through his own Conservative Party in mid-2022 after ethics scandals, and was compounded by the revelation that he and members of his staff had hosted parties at the prime minister’s workplaces in Downing Street in 2020 and 2021, flouting government lockdown restrictions.
Johnson agreed in late 2021 to conduct a public inquiry after heavy pressure from bereaved families.
The investigation, led by retired Judge Heather Hallett, is expected to last three years; Interim reports will be published from next year.
The aim of the investigation is to attract opinions rather than blame people, but its revelations could further tarnish Johnson’s battered reputation.
Former colleagues, aides and advisers have painted an unflattering picture of the former leader and his government during weeks of testimony.
Former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said Johnson was “fooling himself” through science. In the diaries that were taken as evidence, Vallance also said Johnson was “obsessed with making other older people conform to their fate. “
Former adviser Dominic Cummings, now a staunch opponent of Johnson, said the then-prime minister asked scientists whether blowing a hairdryer into your nose could kill the virus.
Former senior civil servant Helen McNamara described a “toxic” macho culture within Johnson’s government, and cabinet secretary Simon Case, the country’s top senior official, called Johnson and his inner circle “fundamentally savage. “
Johnson defended his government, saying it contained “difficult” characters “whose reviews of others would possibly not be worthy of publication, but who have managed to do great business. “
Johnson said he was “not sure” that his government’s decisions had caused too many deaths. He said deciding when to impose lockdowns and other restrictions had been “painful. “
“When it came to the balance of the need to protect the public and protect the (health service), and the damage done by lockdowns, it was incredibly difficult,” he said.
Johnson has submitted a written evidence statement to the inquiry, but hasn’t handed over around 5,000 WhatsApp messages from several key weeks between February and June 2020.
They were on a phone that Johnson had been asked to block when it emerged that the number had been publicly available online for years.
Johnson later said he forgot the password.
At Wednesday’s consultation, he said: “May I, for the avoidance of doubt, make it clear that I have not deleted any WhatsApp from my phone?”
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