Boris Johnson oversaw a \u00ab\u00a0toxic and chaotic\u00a0\u00bb culture within government that led to poor Covid decision-making, the inquiry into the pandemic response has found.<\/p>\n
In a much-awaited report, inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said the former prime minister should have responded more urgently to the developing crisis.<\/p>\n
She also criticised his style of communication, which failed to \u00ab\u00a0convey a proper sense of caution\u00a0\u00bb and undermined official health messaging, she said.<\/p>\n
Johnson’s former top adviser Dominic Cummings was also singled out as a \u00ab\u00a0destabilising influence\u00a0\u00bb and former health secretary Matt Hancock was criticised in the 800-page report.<\/p>\n
Former judge Baroness Hallett said Cummings, who dramatically left No 10 in late 2020 after internal battles over his role, contributed to a \u00ab\u00a0culture of fear\u00a0\u00bb that \u00ab\u00a0poisoned the atmosphere\u00a0\u00bb in Downing Street.<\/p>\n
Cummings \u00ab\u00a0strayed far from the proper role\u00a0\u00bb of an adviser, she added, and tried to make \u00ab\u00a0key decisions\u00a0\u00bb in Johnson’s place – a situation the former prime minister appeared happy with, she wrote.<\/p>\n
He also \u00ab\u00a0materially contributed to the toxic and sexist workplace culture\u00a0\u00bb including using \u00ab\u00a0offensive, sexualised and misogynistic language\u00a0\u00bb in messages, the inquiry found.<\/p>\n
Cummings was also often a catalyst for action and was among the first political figures to demand strategy meetings and modelling to deal with Covid, the report found.<\/p>\n
Alongside civil servants, Cummings helped drive the creation of the Covid-19 Taskforce in the Cabinet Office, which the report said improved the coordination of the government’s response.<\/p>\n
Hancock, who was in charge of the health department through much of the pandemic, developed a reputation in Downing Street for \u00ab\u00a0overpromising and underdelivering,\u00a0\u00bb she added.<\/p>\n
She noted there were concerns \u00ab\u00a0about Hancock’s truthfulness and reliability in UK government meetings\u00a0\u00bb and that civil servants had had to \u00ab\u00a0double-check what we were being told\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Baroness Hallett said it was essential that leaders are \u00ab\u00a0candid\u00a0\u00bb about the scale of problems during an emergency but Hancock \u00ab\u00a0did not adopt such an approach\u00a0\u00bb to the crisis.<\/p>\n
Johnson’s leadership style compounded problems as he \u00ab\u00a0oscillated\u00a0\u00bb on restrictions, enabling the virus to spread at pace, the report said.<\/p>\n
While acknowledging the \u00ab\u00a0profound\u00a0\u00bb decisions he faced, Baroness Hallett concluded he delayed making choices when \u00ab\u00a0timely decision-making was essential\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Johnson’s \u00ab\u00a0expressions of over-optimism\u00a0\u00bb about the impact of Covid also undermined official health advice, the report says – including speaking about shaking hands in hospital the day before launching a handwashing campaign.<\/p>\n
Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle and the rule-breaking \u00ab\u00a0partygate\u00a0\u00bb gatherings also \u00ab\u00a0undermined public confidence and increased the risk of people not complying with the rules designed to protect them,\u00a0\u00bb Baroness Hallett said.<\/p>\n
Cummings has hit back at the inquiry, accusing it of a \u00ab\u00a0vast rewriting of history\u00a0\u00bb and failing to challenge the version of events put forward by scientists.<\/p>\n
In a social media statement published shortly before the report was published, the former aide added: \u00ab\u00a0The ‘experts’ were almost totally wrong, and the entire system has worked to cover this up since then, including the inquiry\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Johnson has yet to respond to the report.<\/p>\n
Hancock, who resigned from the health role in June 2021 after breaching social distancing guidance by kissing a colleague and did not stand for re-election at last year’s election, is also yet to respond to the report.<\/p>\n
The report is the conclusion of the second chapter of the long-running inquiry, which examined how politicians around the UK managed the response to the virus.<\/p>\n
Baroness Hallett found the UK was too late to consider the idea of a lockdown to suppress the disease in 2020, by which time the need for stringent restrictions had become \u00ab\u00a0unavoidable\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
But she also concluded a lockdown \u00ab\u00a0might have been shorter or not necessary at all\u00a0\u00bb had initial steps to restrict its spread been taken sooner.<\/p>\n
Neither the UK government nor the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had a strategy for exiting the first lockdown, and didn’t give \u00ab\u00a0enough attention to the possibility of a second wave\u00a0\u00bb, the report said.<\/p>\n
The \u00ab\u00a0Eat Out to Help Out\u00a0\u00bb scheme, which encouraged people back to restaurants, \u00ab\u00a0might have contributed to a belief that the pandemic was effectively over\u00a0\u00bb even though ministers knew further waves were likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boris Johnson oversaw a \u00ab\u00a0toxic and chaotic\u00a0\u00bb culture within government that led to poor Covid decision-making, the inquiry into the pandemic response has found. In a much-awaited report, inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said the former prime minister should have responded more urgently to the developing crisis. She also criticised his style of communication, which failed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}