Boris Johnson has apologised “for the pain and the loss” of Covid-19 victims and conceded his government “may have made mistakes” during the pandemic, but declined to comment on whether its decisions increased the death toll.
The former UK prime minister, who has been the subject of damaging claims by former officials and ministers, told the Covid public inquiry on Wednesday that he took personal responsibility for “all the decisions that we made”.
“Can I just say how . . . sorry I am for the pain and the loss and the suffering of the Covid victims,” said Johnson, who was in office between 2019 and 2022.
“So many people suffered . . . Inevitably in the course of trying to handle a very, very difficult pandemic in which we had to balance appalling harms . . . we may have made mistakes,” he added.
Asked by Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel for the inquiry, whether he believed ministers’ decisions led to more deaths during the pandemic, Johnson said: “I can’t give you the answer to that question, I’m not sure.”
Among the most grave criticisms Johnson has faced is that he ordered the first UK lockdown on March 23 2020 too late.
Last week, former health secretary Matt Hancock told the inquiry that a lockdown three weeks earlier “would have saved many, many lives”. Last month, it heard that senior advisers to Johnson recommended the move on March 14.
More than 50,000 deaths connected to Covid were recorded during the first wave. To date, Covid has killed more than 227,000 people in Britain and infected many millions more.
In the first of two days of evidence, Johnson disputed data presented by Keith during an earlier stage of the inquiry showing the UK recorded the second-highest death toll in Europe. He said he had seen different figures.
Asked whether decisions about when to implement lockdowns may have affected the number of excess deaths, Johnson said: “Given that other countries have excellent healthcare systems, and ended up with statistically with more deaths . . . the answer is I don’t know.”
“We have an extremely elderly population, we do suffer from many Covid-related comorbidities, and we are the second most densely populated in Europe,” added Johnson, who was admitted to hospital with the virus in April 2020.
Excess deaths are the difference between deaths from all causes during the pandemic and the historic seasonal average.
The Covid public inquiry is examining the government’s response to the virus, including the UK’s preparedness and senior decision-making.
It is due to run until the summer of 2026, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expected to appear before the end of this year.
Since its second module, which covers “core political and administrative decision-making”, began in October, several former senior officials have strongly criticised Johnson’s leadership in oral and written evidence.
Lee Cain, former Downing Street head of communications, said Johnson had “oscillated” on key decisions and would “take a decision from the last person in the room”.
Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, described him as a “shopping trolley”.
Helen MacNamara, deputy cabinet secretary between 2020 and 2021, last month said Number 10 under Johnson was “toxic”, “macho” and “contaminated by ego”.
Johnson dismissed claims that the characterisation of his leadership as incompetent was “extraordinary”, saying similar comments would probably have been made about Margaret Thatcher’s government.
“If you’d have had the views of the mandarinate about the Thatcher government in unexpurgated WhatsApps, m’lady, I think you would have found that they were pretty fruity,” he said.
“WhatsApp conversation is intended to be ephemeral . . . it tends to the hyperbolic and the pejorative,” he added.
Asked whether he was aware that people were not willing to work in his government because of its atmosphere, Johnson said he was “not aware of that” and “didn’t see any sign of that”.
But he admitted that the “gender balance should have been better . . . too many meetings were male-dominated”.
Johnson on Wednesday confirmed he had been unable to provide the inquiry with any of the 5,000 private messages he sent to colleagues during almost the whole period of the first lockdown, but denied deleting them.
Asked about why WhatsApp messages sent between January and June 2020 were missing, Johnson said it “looks as though” they were erased because of “the app going down and then coming up again” between those dates.
Keith said Johnson’s lawyers had submitted evidence suggesting that, in January 2020, the device underwent a factory reset, a process that clears all data.
Johnson said he had no knowledge of that. “I haven’t removed any WhatsApps from my phone,” he said.
Before Johnson began giving evidence, inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett expressed concern over press reports in recent days that detailed the contents of his witness statement and what his evidence would be.
“Until a witness is called and appears at a hearing, or the inquiry publishes the witness’s statement, it’s meant to be confidential between the witness, the inquiry and the core participants,” Hallett said.
As Johnson began giving evidence, ushers at the inquiry were asked to remove a member of the public who refused to sit down.
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