Johnson apologizes at COVID inquiry
Says he’s sorry for ‘pain and suffering’ in UK
LONDON — Regretful but unruffled, Boris Johnson acknowledged on Wednesday that as Britain’s prime minister during the pandemic, he had underestimated the emerging threat of the coronavirus in early 2020. But he rejected suggestions that his government’s initially sluggish response had driven up Britain’s death toll.
Speaking before an official inquiry into the government’s handling of the crisis, Johnson apologized for “the pain and suffering and the loss” of those who died from COVID, and of their families. He said the families deserved answers, as he submitted to two days of grilling about his leadership and judgment during those frantic days.
“There are clearly things that we could have done, and should have done, if we’d known and understood how this was spreading,” Johnson said. “We collectively should have twigged much sooner” to the rapidly looming danger posed by the virus, he added. “I should have twigged.”
Still, Johnson said he was doubtful that acting earlier would have made a big difference. He sparred with the committee’s chief counsel, Hugo Keith, over whether Britain’s death toll, currently at 230,193, placed it among the worst-hit European countries, or merely in the middle.
Johnson, whose time in office was defined and ultimately derailed by the pandemic, was the most eagerly anticipated witness so far in the inquiry, an independent, public examination of Britain’s response to COVID-19, led by a former judge, Heather Hallett, that is expected to continue until 2026.
His daylong testimony mixed references to epidemiological data with detours into the locker-room language used by Johnson and his aides. Though there were no startling revelations, it added up to a revealing glimpse into how Britain’s leaders groped for a remedy to a once-in-a-century health crisis.
Johnson arrived at the hearing room shortly after 7 a.m., hours before the session began, allowing him to avoid COVID victims’ family members who later gathered to protest his appearance. Hallett had to call on protesters several times to stop disrupting the hearing as the former prime minister began to speak.
Johnson generally kept his cool during the first day, showing only a flash of irritation as Keith pressed him about whether he had taken his eye off the ball in February 2020 when he went to Chevening, an official residence outside London, and failed to chair several government meetings about the crisis.
“Nobody is suggesting you had your feet up at Chevening,” Keith said.
“Apart from you, that is,” a visibly peeved Johnson replied.
It was Johnson’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, who had testified that Johnson was away during that period, working on a book on Shakespeare that he owed his publisher. Johnson, who did not mention the book, insisted he had been briefed on the crisis throughout that February.
When asked about the decisions for which he was apologizing, Johnson singled out difficulties in coordinating England’s public health messages with the authorities in Scotland and Wales, then said that he did not want to prejudge the conclusions that would unfold from his evidence.
“Inevitably, we got some things wrong,” Johnson said, while insisting that he and his aides had been doing their best at the time.