COVID inquiry: Boris Johnson says he has reflected on whether lockdowns ‘did more harm than good’

Published

11 months ago

November 3, 2023

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Boris Johnson has told the COVID inquiry he “would be surprised” if he’d said he was “manipulated or pushed” into implementing the first lockdown.

Written evidence that the former prime minister submitted to the inquiry in August has been published, with Mr Johnson saying he had reflected on whether the lockdowns “did more harm than good”.

It comes after those close to Mr Johnson during his time in Number 10 gave evidence to the inquiry in person this week.

Dominic Cummings, his former chief aide, told the inquiry about the decisions made in the early days of the pandemic and claimed scientists tended to be resistant to the idea of lockdown in late February or early March.

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In his documents to the COVID inquiry, Mr Johnson said: “I would be surprised if I ever said that I had been manipulated or pushed into the first lockdown or that I had been ‘gamed on the numbers’ or anything to this effect.”

He went on to say that he has “reflected (no doubt out loud and no doubt many times) about whether the lockdowns would do (and did do) more harm than good”.

The former PM added: “I believe that it was the duty of any pragmatic and responsible leader to have such a debate, both with himself and with colleagues.

“We were between a rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea.”

Mr Johnson is expected to give evidence in person to the COVID inquiry later this year.

In his written evidence, he said: “We simply had no good choices, and it was necessary at all times to weigh up the harms that any choice would cause.

“I was very worried about the economic harm caused by the action we took against COVID-19 and whether it would do more damage to the country than the virus itself.

“But I always attached the highest priority to human life and public health.”

Mr Johnson said that while it may have been “possible” to avoid a lockdown, he could not think how this would have been done without a vaccine or drugs and thought it was “highly unlikely”.

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In his evidence to the inquiry this week, Mr Cummings said: “Many journalists now write about March 2020 as if public health experts were longing to do lockdown and bullied the PM into it.

“This story is totally false.

“In fact, public health experts in February-March were overwhelmingly hostile to lockdown, thinking it should not be tried and if tried could not work. Most public health experts only supported lockdown after it was done.”

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Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer ‘very sensible’ to accept football tickets worth thousands

Published

4 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer 'very sensible' to accept football tickets worth thousands

Lisa Nandy has said Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to accept thousands of pounds worth of football tickets was “very sensible”.

The minister for culture, media and sport also said she had never accepted free clothes from a donor.

Speaking to Sky News at the start of the Labour Party conference today, the MP for Wigan said: “The problem that has arisen since [Sir Keir] became leader of the opposition and then prime minister is that for him to sit in the stands would require a huge security detail, would be disruptive for other people and it would cost the taxpayer a lot of money.

“So I think he’s taken a very sensible decision that’s not the right and appropriate thing to do, and it’s right to accept that he has to go and sit in a different area.

“But I know that he’d much rather be sitting in the stands cheering people on with the usual crowd that he’s been going to the football with for years.”

Ms Nandy also said while she has not accepted free clothes – joking “I think you can probably see that I choose my own clothes sadly” – she doesn’t “make any judgements about what other members of parliament do”.

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She said: “The only judgement I would make is if they’re breaking the rules, so they’re trying to hide what they’re doing. That’s when problems arise.

“Because the point of being open and transparent is that people can see where the relationships are, and they can then judge for themselves whether there’s been any undue influence.”

She asserted there had not been an undue influence in gifts accepted by senior Labour figures, adding: “We don’t want the news and the commentary to be dominated by conversations about clothes.

“We rightly have a system, I think, where the taxpayer doesn’t fund these things. We don’t claim on expenses for them. And so MPs will always take donations, will always take gifts in kind.

“MPs of all political parties have historically done that and that is the system that we have.”

She added: “I don’t think there’s any suggestion here that Keir Starmer has broken any rules. I don’t think there’s any suggestion that he’s done anything wrong.

“We expect our politicians to be well turned out, we expect them to be people who go out and represent us at different events and represent the country at different events and are clothed appropriately.

“But the point is that when we accept donations for that or for anything else, that we declare them and we’re open and transparent about them.”

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Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves said yesterday they will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes.

The announcement followed criticism of Sir Keir’s gifts from donors, which included clothing worth £16,200 and multiple pairs of glasses worth £2,485, according to the MPs’ register of interests.

The register shows Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations to the value of £2,230.

Sky News also revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.

Sir Keir was found to have received substantially more gifts and freebies than any other MP – his total in gifts, benefits, and hospitality topped £100,000 since December 2019.