Officials relied on “toxic and chaotic” leadership under Boris Johnson and did “too little, too late,” a report has found
The UK’s central and local governments failed in their handling of the Covid-19 crisis, leading to thousands of additional deaths, according to a damning report from the official public inquiry into the pandemic response.
Authorities in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland did “too little, too late,” as timely measures such as self-isolation, household quarantine, and social distancing could have prevented 23,000 deaths, the report said, citing computer modelling.
The inquiry found the administrations were too reliant on Westminster to lead the response, while the cabinet of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was described as suffering from a “toxic and chaotic culture.” Key policy decisions were often dominated or derailed by Johnson’s inner circle, the report stated.
Former judge Heather Hallett, who led the inquiry, noted “destabilizing behavior” by several senior figures, including former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings. She accused Johnson of failing to confront – and sometimes “actively encouraging” – the attitude, thus creating “a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making.”
According to the report, similar patterns emerged in Scotland, where policy discussions were improperly constrained. In Northern Ireland, partisan conflict and fragmented government structures further hampered effective pandemic response, the inquiry found.
The report stressed that instances of officials and advisers breaking Covid-19 rules eroded public trust. Revelations about lockdown-breaching gatherings inside Downing Street in 2020 and 2021, dubbed the “Partygate” scandal, inflicted lasting political damage on Johnson, contributing to his early resignation in 2022.
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