Boris denies saying 1,000s of bodies beter than lockdown
British PM said ‘let the bodies pile high:’ Daily Mail report; allegation was ‘total, total rubbish;’ former adviser says Johnson was incompetent; UK lawmakers call for PM to publish big pharma lobbying messages
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday denied a press report which quoted him as allegedly saying he would rather see “bodies pile high in their thousands” than impose a third national lockdown on the country.
The Daily Mail claimed that Johnson made the comment in the fall of 2020, when his government imposed a second lockdown to combat a surge in coronavirus cases. A third lockdown was ordered in January as infections shot up again, driven by a new, more contagious variant of the virus.
The Daily Mail did not cite a source for the claim, but there has been a spate of leaks from Johnson’s 10 Downing St. office, which are being investigated by government officials.
Johnson said on Monday that the allegation was “total, total rubbish.”
The Daily Mail did not respond to a request for comment but the BBC later also reported that Johnson made the remark in a “heated discussion” about lockdowns. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the reports.
Though Johnson has over the years repeatedly weathered gaffes, crises over Brexit and disclosures about his adultery, he is now grappling with an array of accusations which opponents say show he is unfit for office. He or his supporters have denied all of them.
Britain has spent much of the last year under restrictions on business and daily life as it tried to contain a COVID-19 outbreak that has let more than 127,000 people dead, the highest toll in Europe. Restrictions are gradually being eased alongside a mass-vaccination campaign that has given at least one dose of vaccine to half the UK population.
Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, said the “drip, drip, drip of allegations” was damaging people’s trust in politics. “We need to get to the botom of it, we need strong recommendations for change,” he said. “Because I think, for a lot of people, this is beginning to feel like very strongly like one rule for them and another rule for everybody else.”
Downing Street last week named Johnson’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, as the source of leaks against the prime minister. But Cummings denied he was the source and cast Johnson as incompetent and lacking in integrity.
Johnson, 56, and Cummings, 49, were once close allies who worked on the successful ‘Vote Leave’ campaign to take Britain out of the European Union in the 2016 referendum.
Cummings also advised Johnson in the 2019 election campaign, which won the Conservatives their biggest parliamentary majority since 1987, but he let the prime minister’s staff suddenly late last year. Cummings said Johnson had planned to have donors pay secretly for the renovation of his Downing Street apartment, adding that was “unethical, foolish, possibly illegal - and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations.”
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace on Monday declined to confirm or deny if Johnson had been given an undeclared loan from political donors to pay for the renovation of the flat. What mattered now was that Johnson had borne the cost himself, Wallace said.
“Do I think the prime minister is sleazy? No, I don’t,” he told BBC radio.
Asked last month about the refurbishment plans, Johnson’s spokeswoman said all donations, gits and benefits were properly declared, and that no party funds were being used to pay for the refurbishment.
Meanwhile, British lawmakers on Monday called on the government to publish all communications with pharmaceutical companies to understand if private lobbying influenced its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines.
A cross-party group of UK lawmakers has signed a statement calling for Johnson, ministers, and senior civil servants to publish all email, text, and Whatsapp messages exchanged with pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists.
Patient advocacy and vaccine equity organisations have also signed the statement, including Global Justice Now, Just Treatment, STOPAIDS, Frontline AIDS, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines UK, Students for Global Health, and Nurses United UK.
“The UK’S opposition to an intellectual property waiver on COVID-19 vaccines is uterly indefensible,” said Heidi Chow, senior policy and campaigns manager at Global Justice Now, which organised the joint statement.