Gove backs PM as Johnson denies making ‘bodies piled high’ remark
MICHAEL Gove has backed Boris Johnson after the Prime Minister allegedly said he was prepared to let “bodies pile high” rather than order another lockdown.
The Cabinet Office Minister said yesterday that he “never heard language of that kind” in the meeting where Mr Johnson ordered the second shutdown in England.
The Prime Minister was also forced to deny making the statement as he faced questions about the briefing war that has hit No.10.
Mr Johnson was accused of having made the remarks after agreeing to a second lockdown, suggesting he was prepared to face a mounting death toll rather than order a third set of tough restrictions.
MPs grilled Mr Gove on the allegation, with the Daily Mail having cited an individual “close to” the minister as being among the sources in its report on the claim.
“The idea that he would say any such thing I find incredible,” Mr Gove told the Commons.
He added that “I was in that room, I never heard language of that kind”, in a defence stopping short of a full denial that the comments had been made.
However, a report in the Spectator magazine suggested Mr Johnson made the remark in his study just after he agreed to the second lockdown.
The Daily Mail first carried the claim that, following a decision on the second lockdown, the Prime Minister said he would rather see “bodies pile high in their thousands” than order a third one.
The paper did not name the source of the allegation, which was later also reported by the BBC citing “sources familiar with the talks”, but ministers hit out at “gossip” spread by “unnamed advisers”.
Asked if he made the comments, Mr Johnson told reporters in Wrexham: “No, but I think the important thing I think people want us to get on and do as a Government is to make sure that the lockdowns work. They have, and I really pay tribute to the people of this country, this whole country of ours, really pulled together and, working with the vaccination programme, we have got the disease under control.”
He insisted the “stuff that people are talking about” in Westminster were not issues being raised on the doorstep ahead of the May 6 elections.
The decision on the second lockdown last autumn was leaked and is the subject of an inquiry to find the so-called “chatty rat” who tipped off the press.
Appearing before MPs, the UK’s most senior civil servant declined to say whether Mr Johnson’s former adviser, Dominic Cummings, had been cleared over that leak, as the former aide has claimed.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case told the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) that it is “probable” that the culprit will never be identified.
But he said the Prime Minister did not try to block the investigation, after his former Vote Leave ally alleged he had considered the move.
Mr Cummings accused Mr Johnson of seeking to block the investigation after learning that a close friend of his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, had been implicated, a claim the Prime Minister denied.
In an incendiary blog post, Mr Cummings went on to say that Mr Case had told Mr Johnson that neither he nor the then No.10 director of communications, Lee Cain, was the culprit.
The Cabinet Secretary declined to comment on the suggestion, telling the MPs: “I am not trying to frustrate, but this is drawing me into details of an ongoing investigation which – for reasons I have set out – I can’t go into in this setting.”
Asked by chairman William Wragg if an outcome had been “actually desired”, Mr Case said that “from the outset” the Prime Minister and others were “determined” to find the culprit.
Pressed if he knew of an investigation being stopped because the outcome would be embarrassing, Mr Case said: “No, in relation to this particular leak and others, the Prime Minister has always been clear, very determined to see these inquiries complete.”
Mr Cummings released his onslaught after he was accused by No.10 of a series of damaging leaks, including text message exchanges between Mr Johnson and entrepreneur Sir James Dyson.