Former cabinet minister Lord Michael Gove has apologised on behalf of the then-government and Conservative Party for \u00ab\u00a0mistakes made\u00a0\u00bb during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
In her long-awaited report published, Baroness Hallett says Boris Johnson, the prime minister at the time, oversaw a \u00ab\u00a0toxic and chaotic\u00a0\u00bb culture in No 10 during Covid.<\/p>\n
Lord Gove told the BBC’s Today programme some \u00ab\u00a0attitudes\u00a0\u00bb in Downing Street had been \u00ab\u00a0far from ideal\u00a0\u00bb but added that in a crisis \u00ab\u00a0the business of government can’t be carried out in the manner of a Jane Austen novel\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He also said an earlier lockdown would have been \u00ab\u00a0wiser\u00a0\u00bb but questioned the report’s assertion that it would have meant fewer deaths.<\/p>\n
Responding to the report, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government would learn lessons from the report and was already \u00ab\u00a0taking measures to make sure that, not just the NHS but the government as a whole, is prepared for any number of eventualities\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The 800-page inquiry report is highly critical of government decision-making, and says implementing a Covid lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives in the first wave in England – although it does not suggest that the overall death toll would have been reduced.<\/p>\n
It also says lockdowns could have been avoided if the government had introduced restrictions such as social distancing earlier and concludes lockdowns \u00ab\u00a0only became inevitable because of the acts and omissions of the four governments\u00a0\u00bb in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n
The report describes February 2020 as a \u00ab\u00a0lost month\u00a0\u00bb and says the government’s lack of urgency was \u00ab\u00a0inexcusable\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
It says there was a failure to learn lessons from the first Covid wave and that restrictions in autumn 2020 were introduced too slowly.<\/p>\n
At Christmas of the same year, the inquiry argues the governments failed to take action \u00ab\u00a0until infection levels were critical\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Johnson, who was prime minister between 2019 and 2022 and set up the inquiry, is accused in the report of failing to make decisions quickly enough in autumn 2020 – and of repeatedly changing his mind.<\/p>\n
He has been contacted for a comment.<\/p>\n
Lord Gove rejected a suggestion that the conclusions of the Covid report would put an end to any future political ambitions Johnson may have.<\/p>\n
He said Johnson’s style of decision-making \u00ab\u00a0may not be to everyone’s taste\u00a0\u00bb but added he was \u00ab\u00a0wrestling with an enormously difficult question about the curtailment of liberty and the maintenance of access to healthcare\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0More than that, without his drive we would not have had his vaccine roll-out that ensured we were the first country to put jabs in arms.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Dominic Cummings, a senior aide in Downing Street at the time, is singled out for criticism in the report which suggests he displayed \u00ab\u00a0destabilising behaviour\u00a0\u00bb and contributed to a \u00ab\u00a0culture of fear\u00a0\u00bb that \u00ab\u00a0poisoned the atmosphere\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
It also said the loudest voices in government prevailed – and many were ignored \u00ab\u00a0to the detriment of good decision-making\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Cummings, who left No 10 at the end of 2020, accused the inquiry of enabling \u00ab\u00a0a vast rewriting of history\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He said it was \u00ab\u00a0important for the public to realise that on most of the big questions, the ‘experts’ including the senior scientists were completely wrong\u00a0\u00bb in the early months of 2020.<\/p>\n
Lord Gove said Cummings had been responsible for ensuring data was \u00ab\u00a0accurately and thoroughly interrogated\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He also said the report noted Cummings’ interventions had been \u00ab\u00a0critical to putting in place the measures necessary to suppress the virus\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Asked about the culture in Downing Street, he said: \u00ab\u00a0It’s the case that we were dealing with, as everyone in the world was, an unprecedented crisis… and of course, under pressure with imperfect information, mistakes are made, voices are raised.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Rishi Sunak, who was chancellor during the pandemic, told BBC 5 Live’s Matt Chorley that both the government and scientists had been \u00ab\u00a0operating in a highly uncertain environment\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I think we do need to view the decisions taken through that lens, but it’s important that lessons are learned so that we can be better prepared if there’s ever another pandemic.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Baroness Hallett also criticised Sir Chris Wormald – he is currently the cabinet secretary, the most senior civil servant in the government, but during the pandemic was the permanent secretary at the health department.<\/p>\n
She said he had failed to take action to \u00ab\u00a0rectify the overenthusiastic impression\u00a0\u00bb given by then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock about the ability of the department to deal with the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Asked on Radio 4’s Today programme, if Sir Chris should stay in his job, given the report’s criticism, Science Secretary Liz Kendall said \u00ab\u00a0yes\u00a0\u00bb adding that he was doing \u00ab\u00a0excellent work across government including learning the lessons from this pandemic\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former cabinet minister Lord Michael Gove has apologised on behalf of the then-government and Conservative Party for \u00ab\u00a0mistakes made\u00a0\u00bb during the coronavirus pandemic. In her long-awaited report published, Baroness Hallett says Boris Johnson, the prime minister at the time, oversaw a \u00ab\u00a0toxic and chaotic\u00a0\u00bb culture in No 10 during Covid. Lord Gove told the BBC’s […]<\/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-9472","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\/9472","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=9472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}