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Analysis: Britain’s Covid inquiry has become a political farce
Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN
Updated 4:24 AM EDT, Sat June 17, 2023
The gloves are off between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
The gloves are off between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
Heathcliff O'Malley/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
London
CNN
—
Britain’s Covid inquiry was supposed to give closure to people who lost
loved ones in the pandemic. It’s instead become a political circus that
could hurt both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
The inquiry, which began taking evidence on Tuesday, had for weeks been
overshadowed by a series of spats between Sunak, the current prime
minister, and Johnson, who resigned in disgrace last summer.
The first such spat relates directly to the inquiry. Sunak and his
government is legally challenging the inquiry’s right to request
personal information from people who were directly involved in
decision-making during the pandemic. That means anything form private
WhatsApp messages to private diaries.
The government says it wants to block this because it could set a
precedent where information that isn’t relevant could enter the public
domain which could have an adverse affect on the way that people making
decisions communicate during a crisis.
Johnson undercut Sunak by directly handing his own information to the
inquiry.
Deborah Doyle, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice,
said of the government’s legal action: “For the Cabinet Office to spend
hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on suing its own
public inquiry into being unable to access critical evidence is
absolutely obscene … They’re displaying exactly the same contempt for
ordinary people that was so disastrous when the pandemic struck in the
first place.”
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak led Britain through much of the pandemic.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak led Britain through much of the pandemic.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The second, and probably more explosive, of the spats distracting from
the inquiry revolves around a parliamentary committee specifically
looking at whether or not Johnson knowingly misled lawmakers when he
said that during the pandemic, all of the rules in place were observed
at all times.
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This is the committee’s investigation into the infamous Partygate
scandal, which led to Johnson being fined by police for breaking Covid
rules. Sunak was also fined for the same incident.
Johnson had initially told parliament that all rules were followed at
all times. Even after it become transparent that this wasn’t true,
Johnson maintained that he did not knowingly mislead parliament. The
committee disagreed, this week recommending that Johnson should be
suspended from parliament for 90 days and not be allowed a pass back
into the building, something ex-members are entitled to.
Having seen the report ahead of its publication, Johnson resigned as a
member of parliament and continued to accuse the committee of being
politically motivated. He still protests his innocence and has called
the committee “beneath contempt”.
While Johnson has ostensibly resigned over the committee’s report, it
was expected that Johnson might resign after Sunak rejected certain
people that Johnson wanted to elevate to the UK’s upper parliamentary
chamber, the House of Lords. It is believed by Sunak’s allies that
Johnson simply wanted to cause the PM a headache. Johnson’s office
denies this.
‘Shocking’
All of this drama, of course, brings no comfort to those who lost loved
ones to Covid 19.
“The families of the bereaved want the government to learn lessons that
might save lives in the future. All of these attempts to save face are
frankly just shocking,” Jack Rodgers, also from the Covid-19 Bereaved
Families for Justice campaign, told CNN.
Johnson and Sunak would both deny that they are trying to save face. But
the inquiry does have the potential to cause them both enormous damage
in the eyes of the public.
Christina Pagel from University College London’s Clinical Operational
Research Unit thinks that the the inquiry could shine an unflattering
spotlight on what happened after the first wave of Covid-19 hit the UK.
“From summer 2020 onwards, we knew a lot about how the disease spread,
but the government consistently failed to use the summer or the time
during lockdowns to put better protective measures in place, such as
indoor cleaner air or improved support for isolation.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a press conference in response to the
publication of the Sue Gray report Into "Partygate" at Downing Street on
May 25, 2022 in London.
Boris Johnson deliberately misled UK Parliament over Covid lockdown
breaches, inquiry finds
At the time the UK had rules that changed based on infection rates in
local areas. In cases that meant people could meet indoor in groups of
six. It was around this time that Sunak introduced his “Eat Out to Help
Out” scheme, where meals out would be subsidized in an attempt to boost
the hospitality industry.
Leading scientists have claimed that the scheme was not backed by
experts and it is expected to be a key focus of the inquiry – whether or
not encouraging such mixing led to the virus spreading further.
Pagel also points specifically to the way in which procurement contracts
were handed to people who have since been found to have links to the
Conservative party. The government implemented a fast-track scheme in
order to secure personal protective equipment, which have since come
under scrutiny and led to accusations of cronyism.
“It’s one thing acting fast in a crisis; it’s another giving your
friends loads of money despite them not knowing what they are doing.
There were plenty of other eminently qualified people offering to
provide PPE,” she says.
The government argues that at the time it was simply trying to avoid
running out of PPE and did everything possible to secure it.
Report could reveal chaos
CNN spoke to multiple people who worked in government during the
pandemic about their concerns for the inquiry. Most are worried about
what unvarnished records of conversations – cabinet ministers arguing
and big personalities blowing up – will look like to the public. Others
are worried that the true level of chaos inside Downing Street,
particularly at the start of the pandemic, will cause embarrassment for
everyone involved rather than just those in charge.
One senior government official at the time described how teams
deliberately tried to keep their work away from Johnson who was, they
say, often erratic and would get in the way of what they were doing.
This included setting up work space in different buildings.
Ultimately, it is inevitable that this inquiry will put the people who
led the country at the time under fresh scrutiny. And it’s possible much
of what comes out will be embarrassing. Which, of course, somewhat
minimizes the human tragedies at the center of this story.
Boris Johnson visits a hospital during the pandemic in 2021. The inquiry
could prove embarrasing for the former PM.
Boris Johnson visits a hospital during the pandemic in 2021. The inquiry
could prove embarrasing for the former PM.
Peter Summers/Getty Images
Lorelei King lost her husband early in the pandemic. She is watching the
inquiry unfold with some concern.
“They are refusing to call any of the bereaved to give direct testimony.
We have submitted 20 potential witnesses. This is not about talking
about our experience, this is about presenting relevant evidence,” she
told CNN.
“On day one, the inquiry played a film about the impact of the virus on
the bereaved. Baroness Hallett, who is leading the inquiry, said she had
learned something new from the film. So there it is, that (fresh
evidence) came from individual direct testimony.”
King told CNN that she and the care home her husband, who had
Alzheimer’s, was living in agreed to end in-person visits before the
government locked down.
One day, she noticed on a video call that her husband’s breathing was
unusual. “Days later he was dead. I got to see his body briefly, then
men in hazmat suits came and took him away.”
For King, the political drama that has dominated the conversation around
Covid in the UK recently has made the grieving process even harder.
“The scab is ripped off every time there is a story about parties, about
people breaking the rules, about how they want to handle the inquiry. It
certainly has taken the focus off the human costs. I think the bereaved
have a particular insight and the people who cannot understand why we
can’t move on or say, ‘oh heck it was only a birthday cake’, I can only
assume they haven’t lost someone to Covid.”