By Ben Kerrigan-
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was told by protesters on Tuesday that the dead can’t hear his apologies during his appearance before the covid inquiry.
Johnson apologised to the inquiry after facing accusations of overseeing a “disgusting orgy of narcissism” as he before the COVID-19 Inquiry, with hecklers and a lawyer representing bereaved families expressing their discontent.
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Johnson, who has been well-prepared for the inquiry by top lawyers, faced interruptions and criticism during his session.
Lawyer Aamer Anwar, representing COVID bereaved families, condemned Johnson’s government, stating, “Instead of solving a national crisis, his government presided over a total disgusting orgy of narcissism, he did let the bodies pile up, and the elderly were treated as toxic waste – as a result over a quarter of a million people died of COVID.”
During the inquiry, Johnson was heckled by protesters, one of whom held up a placard with the words: “The dead can’t hear your apologies.” The disruptions led to individuals being escorted out of the session, with the chair urging them to sit down or leave.
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As Johnson addressed questions about the high rate of excess COVID deaths in the UK, the chair had to pause the proceedings once again to remind hecklers to contain their emotions.
Johnson, questioned about the extent to which he accepts personal responsibility for the government’s admitted mistakes during the pandemic, responded, “I take personal responsibility for all the decisions that we made.”
Boris Johnson was confronted with expletive-filled WhatsApps during his evidence, one of which he received from Dominic Cummings describing Mr Hanaock as “unfit for this job.”
“The incompetence, the constant lies, the obsession with media bullshit over doing his job.
“Still no f*****g serious testing in care homes his uselessness is still killing god knows how many,” Mr Cummings wrote.
In response to messages which showed he criticised Matt Hancock, his former health secretary, using the words “totally f—ing hopeless”, Johnson said:
“I would say that my job was not to uncritically accept that everything we were doing was good, although as it happens I do think that the country as a whole had notable achievements during the crisis.
“My job was to try to get a load of quite disparate, quite challenging characters to keep going and through a long period and to keep doing their level best to protect the country. That is my job.”
Asked about Helen McNamara’s claims that Dominic Cummings contributed to a “toxic atmosphere” and Simon Case telling him that “top drawer” people had refused to work in his administration because of a culture of toxicity, Mr Johnson said: “I was not aware of that. I did not see any sign of that… We had no difficulty getting wonderful people to step forward.
“I think if I might make one self-criticism, or another self-criticism, I think the gender balance of my team should have been better and to your earlier question, looking back at it, when I was running London it was great and it was 50:50 and it was a very harmonious team. I think sometimes during the pandemic too many teams were male-dominated… I think that was something to do better.”
When put to Boris Johnson that Mark Sedwill reportedly described his administration as “brutal and useless” and claimed it was “hard to motivate” people.
“Again, I think that actually what you’re looking at in all this stuff is a lot of highly talented and highly motivated people who are stricken with anxiety about what is happening, about the pandemic, who are doing their best and who like all human beings under great stress and great anxiety about themselves and their own performance will be inclined to be critical of others.
“And I think that will have been the same of any administration facing the same sort of challenges on that scale.”
Mr Johnson said it was a “good and healthy thing” that there were heated discussions and debates between ministers, advisers and other figures.
“What we were generally trying to do was make sure we delivered the best possible service for the people of the UK who were going through an absolutely terrible, terrible time. And it would not have been right if we’d have a lot of WhatsApps that said ‘aren’t we doing brilliantly, folks, isn’t this going well?’.
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