The more that is revealed about what was actually going on and how the PM and his government were acting the worse it gets. There were many, at the time, who felt Johnson was doing a good job of leading the country through the pandemic. It is increasingly apparent that he was not. Nor indeed were other ministers. No wonder Hancock has ducked out of the political arena.
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Itās shocking isnāt it yet they can just walk away from their incompetence and still pocket huge salaries and expenses .
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Shambolic dysfunction in Downing Street, with thousands upon thousands of lives at stake, is the claim, to the Covid inquiry, from some of those who worked very closely alongside Boris Johnson during the pandemic. They are painting a picture of chaos, and of a prime minister they claim was temperamentally unsuited to the scale of the challenge the pandemic confronted him with.
This inquiry is giving us a look into the workings of government, with the bonnet up. And, bluntly, it is not a pretty sight.
The pandemic, with its need for social distance, coincided with a written communications tool - WhatsApp - becoming a mainstream platform for communication. But not just any communication: an informal, minute-by-minute written down substitution for what might otherwise have been said out loud ad-libbed remarks, lost to the ether moments after their utterance. Instead, as patchy as it might be in the places, we get a glimpse of the tone and mood of senior figures, and not just their point of view.
It is often many of the things many of us can be some of the time: unvarnished, crude and shorn of the usual gloss applied to communications for public consumption. We are getting a sense of the organisational oddities, human failings and frailties, and decision-making processes of those whom fate chose to be in positions of power when the pandemic struck.
Given the unprecedented scale of what confronted the government then, how much of the chaos we are now getting a glimpse of would have been likely under any prime minister, or collection of senior individuals in government? And how much was a direct consequence of Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Dominic Cummings and others, and the relationships between them?
It is a question that will always be - to a great extent - unanswerable. (1)
(1) Not to me - BJ was PM but, as a well-known narcissist and well-documented liar, he had always been temperamentally unsuited to the position. BJ was only ever interested in money, sex and power - the challenges of government were best avoided until they were staring him in the face and then he panicked. IMO, he was also intellectually unfit to lead, let alone govern. As for his Cabinet, we are already aware of the failings of many of them - Iām sure that there are many more to be exposed.
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Standard UK political stuff Omah. I canāt understand why anyone should be surprisedā¦
Blimey, someoneās been on tāradio and echoed my comments:
Lord Bethell, who was appointed a health minister in March 2020, the month the UK went into its first lockdown, said Boris Johnson did āeverything he couldā to avoid focusing on the pandemic.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4ās Today programme, the Conservative peer said: āI was aware that during the early days of the pandemic, it was extremely difficult to get any response from Downing Street, and we could see this train coming down the tracks at us.ā
āIt was put to us there were other priorities including Brexit. I personally found that completely unexplainable and baffling,ā he said.
āI know [Boris Johnson] found the prospect of a pandemic personally very difficult to focus on, it was bad news of a kind he doesnāt like to respond to, and he did everything he could to try to avoid the subject,ā he said.
More of the same in the inquiry:
Lee Cain, the former Downing Street director of communications, told the inquiry the severity of the crisis required firm and constant leadership, which the former prime minister was unable to provide.
The former senior aide described Johnsonās words at a press conference in spring 2020 as āunhelpfulā when the prime minister indicated that the UK could get the Covid virus under control within 12 weeks as it āset a very unrealistic expectation of where the nation needed to be at that pointā.
Asked by the inquiryās lawyer whether he agreed with WhatsApp messages from Dominic Cummings, the former top No 10 aide, that suggested that Johnson might not be up to the job, Cain said: āI think thatās quite a strong thing to say. I think what will probably be clear in Covid, it was the wrong crisis for this prime ministerās skillset. Which is different, I think, from not potentially being up for the job of prime minister. Heās somebody who would often delay making decisions. He would often seek counsel from multiple sources and change his mind on issues. Sometimes in politics that can be a great strength ā¦ If you look at something like Covid, you need quick decisions and you need people to hold the course and have the strength of mind to do that over a sustained period of time and not constantly unpick things ā¦ I felt it was the wrong challenge for him mostly.ā
Cain said that while it was āunderstandableā that Johnson had āoscillatedā between locking down the country and other policy options, those moment of indecision seriously impacted on the pace of the governmentās reaction ā and that his approach was āmore difficult to defendā later in the pandemic.
āWrong skillsetā ā¦ my Rās ā¦ BJ is fundamentally incapable of performing any task ā¦ heās always got through by bluffing, blustering and blagging ā¦ 
Cummings starts giving evidence to Covid inquiry
Dominic Cummings, who was Boris Johnsonās chief adviser for most of 2020, has just started giving evidence.
As he began, Sky News warned its viewers to expect bad language.
Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, is questioning Cummings. He says the inquiry has had a witness statement. It was ālengthyā, he says (which will be no surprise to anyone who has read a Cummings blog).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/health-67244704
Key points from today so far
The Covid inquiry has been hearing from two of former PM Boris Johnsonās top aides about how the government handled the pandemic.
Hereās some of the evidence weāve heard so far:
- Dominic Cummings said the Cabinet Office was a ādumpster fireā and ābomb siteā when he took up his role as adviser in 2019
- Text messages from Cummings, who was sacked in late 2020, were shown to the inquiry, many of which contained what he called āappalling languageā about ministers. However, he said his judgement of a lot of senior people was āwidespreadā
- The inquiry also heard Johnson was āobsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with lifeā, according to notebook entries from then chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance in 2020
- Cummings is due to resume giving evidence from 13:45. There may be some strong language in our live feed at the top of the page, which there BBC is broadcasting on public interest grounds
Iām not sure anyone can say that Johnson was as bad as any other PM and his inexperienced ministers (remember, Johnson kicked out the experienced ones because they could see that Brexit was a bad idea) was standard and as bad as any other administration. Except for Truss but she truly set a new low bar. It looks increasingly clear that Johnson was ill-equipped to be the PM and completely out of his depth of as a PM in times of crisis.
Iām not entirely sure when this took place in the inquiry but it was sometime today:
The former chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, in his diaries described a ābonkers set of exchangesā in a meeting from that August. He noted that Johnson appeared āobsessed with older people accepting their fateā and letting younger people get on with their lives during the pandemic.
Another note from Vallance, after a meeting in December 2020, hinted at the power wielded by the right of the Conservative party during the pandemic: āPM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not).
āHe says his party āthinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just natureās way of dealing with old people ā and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.āā
Vallanceās diary also recounts how then chief whip Mark Spencer told a cabinet meeting in December 2020 that āwe should let the old people get it and protect othersā. He said that Johnson then added: āA lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with themā.
The documents emerged during a bruising session of the Covid inquiry for the former prime minister, with the former senior aides Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings questioning in evidence his suitability for the role during the pandemic.
Blimey ā¦ just a couple of notes but they are, presumably, a true reflection of Tory attitude towards the effect of the pandemic ā¦ 
Dominic Cummings, Johnsonās top adviser at the height of the pandemic, gave evidence.
- Cummings painted a picture of a government which was ādysfunctionalā and had no plan to lock down the country or shield the vulnerable, even as the virus was spreading across the UK
- He said it was āpretty insaneā that Johnson and other senior figures were on holiday over half-term in February 2020, as the Covid crisis escalated
- Text messages from Cummings, who was sacked in late 2020, were shown to the inquiry, many of which contained what he called āappalling languageā about ministers and officials.
The inquiry lawyer has been asking Cummings about the infamous trip he took to Barnard Castle, in the north of England, on 12 April 2020, during the first lockdown. This leads to a heated exchange, as Hugo Keith KC grills Cummings about why he needed to travel with his wife and child in the car.
āObviously, I didnāt have to have them in the car,ā Cummings eventually acknowledges.
Another fiery back-and-forth as Keith questions whether Cummings accepts that this action - and the press conference in the Downing Street rose garden - ācaused immeasurable offence and pain to the bereavedā. Cummings says that the āhandlingā of these events was a ādisasterā and a ācar crashā for which he feels regret.
In regards to the actions themselves, he says: āIn going north and coming back down, I acted entirely reasonably and legally and did not break any rules.ā
I could easily use some āappalling languageā about the dreadful Cummings ā¦ 
I would imagine that had you been PM Lincs, you would have kicked out anyone who supported Brexit, experienced or not. Having ministers that supported you and watched your back would be preferable to ministers that disagreed with your policies. So that theory is a nonsenseā¦ 
Ok, so we risk going slightly off topic here but the dismissal of senior, experienced MPās had a considerable impact on the competency of Johnsonās government. Just look at the people he kicked out - Grieve, Clarke, Letwin, Soames, Hammond, Greening, Gauke, Stewart.
The notion that others would have kicked out tory MPs who disagreed with the PM is patently wrong. Look at the pain in the proverbial MPs that Major and May had to put up with.
Johnson, through his weakness, removed voices against him and his poorly designed Brexit and left a weak, inexperienced cabinet. The Covid crisis simply confirmed that inexperience. And that cost thousands of lives.
Since this is, inevitably, going to be a long, convoluted thread, it might be best to stick to the daily activities and reports of the inquiry.
Obviously, if the topic of BJās cabinet dismissals over Brexit disagreements arises later in the inquiry, then comments would be relevant.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-67283378
Today, the Covid inquiry hears from former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara. She was the second-most senior civil servant in the country during the pandemic.
MacNamara was the focus of disparaging messages sent by Cummings in 2020 that were read to the inquiry yesterday. Cummings denied being misogynistic.
During the pandemic, MacNamara was reported to have attended a leaving do for a fellow civil servant in June 2020, providing a karaoke machine for the event.
The event was investigated by the police alongside other government gatherings during lockdown. MacNamara apologised after receiving a fine from police last year.
She went on to leave government in the final lockdown and take a job at the Premier League - which she left earlier this year to focus on her family, as reported by Politico.
MacNamara has previously described her work environment during the pandemic: āWhat people probably never understood was just how testy and toxic and unpleasant it got as a place to work during those periods.ā
Possibly some interesting disclosures, then ā¦ 
I think the people who are asking the Questions at the Inquiry have already been asking if the inexperience of the cabinet had adversely impacted the government response in dealing with Covid.
The reasons for Johnson appointing those inexperienced people to cabinet positions was not discussed but the inexperience of the cabinet was. When Martin Reynolds was questioned by the inquiry a couple of days ago, he was asked if the government was too āinexperiencedā to deal with a crisis on the level of the Covid pandemic.
There was also quite a bit of discussion about the lack of experience / ability of cabinet ministers during Cummings evidence when they were asking him to explain what some of his expletive-laden messages meant.
You will have to provide quotes to support your assertion of relevance.
Do I need to provide āquotesā for an informal forum discussion?
I canāt see why it should be necessary, especially when the Inquiry proceedings are already officially recorded.
Itās difficult to provide quotes because it wasnāt something I read that I can just copy from and paste it into a post - my comment was based on what I heard when I watched both Reynolds and Cummings giving evidence to the Inquiry.
To satisfy your request for a āquoteā, Iāve found the site for the Archives of the Inquiry but I am unable to copy just the relevant parts from the document I downloaded.
Iāll paste a link to the document which is a transcript of the session in which Reynolds was answering questions - if you want to read the part of the evidence I referred to, the question Reynolds was asked about inexperienced government is on Page 35 and the Q&As about it continue from there until around Page 38.
I havenāt time right now to scroll through the Archives to find the Cummings session but what I heard him saying when I watched the Inquiry on BBC iPlayer will all be recorded in the Archives.
These are the rules for the OP:
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If I follow the rules then, IMO, so, where possible, as amateur of courtesy if not protocol, should contributors.
Additionally, by its very nature, this thread is chronological and current but you appear to be referring to something that happened āa couple of days agoā. That would have been an appropriate time to interject.
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