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re: UK Covid-19 INQUIRY -Rishi Sunak & EX PM Boris Johnson Give Evidence
UK COVID-19 INQUIRY -OFFICIAL Inquiry Looking at The UK's Response to The Covid Pandemic.
Distrust and Chaos in The Countrys’ Government During The Covid-19 Pandemic.
Then PM Boris Johnson Asked If Britain Was “Licked as a Species”
Sunak, Then Chancellor, Thought Government 'Should Just Let People Die’
BBC NOV 2023
Over the course of several hours of testimony at the Covid Inquiry, Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser to the Government, lifted the lid on the chaos and dysfunction inside Downing Street.
Extracts That Lift The Lid on No 10's Covid Chaos
KEY POINTS
Evidence to Covid Inquiry - Sir Patrick Vallance Disclosed Details of Hours of Meetings With UK Government
Johnson Bamboozled by Science - Boris Johnson wondered out loud if Britain was “licked as a species” ahead of plunging the UK into another lockdown
'The UK Should Have Gone Into Lockdown at Least a Week Before It Did' - Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser.
He also contradicts Rishi Sunaks’ evidence to Covid inquiry- 'PM would almost certainly have known concerns over ‘eat out to help out’ scheme'
'Sunak, then Chancellor, Thought Government Should Just Let People Die’ Dominic Cummings Claimed
Rishi Sunak would almost certainly have known scientists were worried about his “eat out to help out” scheme during the pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance has said, directly contradicting the prime minister’s evidence to the Covid inquiry.
In potentially damaging testimony, Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, said he would be “very surprised” if Sunak, then chancellor, had not learned about objections to his plan to help the hospitality industry.
Sunak had written to the inquiry saying he “[did] not recall any concerns about the scheme” being raised in ministerial meetings despite growing concerns that the discount plan could fuel the spread of the virus.
In an extract from Vallance’s contemporaneous diary, the inquiry also heard of a “shambolic” day on 25 October 2020, when the country was heading towards a second national lockdown.
The diary entry highlights how Boris Johnson wanted to let the virus spread, while his most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings (DC), suggested Sunak, then chancellor, thought it was “OK” to just let people die.
The extract read: “PM meeting – begins to argue for letting it all rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it – ‘they have had a good innings’,” before later saying: “DC says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s okay’. This all feels like a complete lack of leadership.”
The same entry also quoted Johnson as saying: “Most people who die have reached their time anyway.”
Asked about the diary entry, Vallance told the inquiry he was recording what must have been “quite a shambolic day”.
Asked about the diary entries, Downing Street declined to say whether Sunak thought it would be OK to “just let people die” during the pandemic, saying it would be for the prime minister to set out his position during evidence before the Covid Inquiry.
In further revelations from the pandemic diaries, an entry in July 2020, provided evidence that Sunak also sought to push back against the scientists’ advice. In one economics-based meeting, Sunak said “it’s all about handling the scientists, not handling the virus”, the entry said.
Vallance said: “There were definitely periods when it was clear that the unwelcome advice we were giving was, as expected, not beloved, and that meant we had to work doubly hard to make sure that the science evidence and advice was being properly heard.”
In other evidence, Vallance said Boris Johnson at times struggled to follow basic scientific concepts crucial to Covid, such as the impacts of lockdown on waves of infection, and had to have them explained repeatedly.
The chancellor Rishi Sunak, placed an ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ sticker in the window of a business during a visit to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, Scotland in August 2020.
TO BE CONTINUED....
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