Name: Covid inquiry: Did Boris Johnson do too little, too late? | BBC Question Time
Uploaded: 2025-11-21T17:02:16.000Z
Duration: 17 min 53 s
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You've just fobbed that guy off in the audience who asked for an apology and in doing so, you've fobbed off the whole country.

So I'm assuming, Anil, you are referring to the report that has come out just at four o'clock this afternoon.

She her view, her conclusion was the government response was too little, too late.

Imposing a lockdown a week earlier in March 2020 could have saved 23,000 lives, according to some modelling in England.

And she talked about a toxic and chaotic culture at the heart of the government led by Boris Johnson.

So Covid was a global pandemic of proportions we've never seen before.

It was unprecedented and the government of the time made a series of decisions based on advice.

It made the decisions it thought was right at the time.

Now, some people thought we should have locked down earlier and that's what this report, with hindsight finds, and

But quite a lot of people thought we locked down too harshly, our measures were too harsh.

Now, I respect a number of views at that time about how we should deal with it, but

I do also ask that people respect the government did what it thought was right.

What about these comments about a toxic and chaotic culture at the heart of government?

Undoubtedly, undoubtedly actively encouraged by Boris went on at number 10 that should not have gone on.

I am not going to defend some of those things that we knew about at the time, by the way, but

this report does find that in some cases there was no good decision, right decision to make.

And it also finds fault with all devolved nations in Britain as well.

So Scottish government under the SNP and the Welsh government under Labour, as well as the UK government under the Conservatives.

But what we must do is ensure that we actually learn the lessons that this Covid inquiry is providing for us so that God forbid this should ever happen again.

Whoever is in government are fully prepared and those mistakes are not repeated.

And if we revert to using this for political point scoring, we will have failed those people not only who lost their lives, but

have lived with the consequences ever after.

Let me just ask you, I mean, you kind of answered, but

I just want to be completely clear, when Baroness Hallett, this is her second reporting study, not her first, when she talks about a toxic and chaotic culture at the heart of government, and

with Boris Johnson failing to tackle that culture and sometimes actively encouraging it, do you Agree with that.

I'm not going to defend that culture that she has identified.

But what I would say is that the government at the time took decisions in good faith and includes things like a vaccine rollout, which she commended, by the way, which was a vaccine developed in this country and which was then used around the world.

So there were certainly some good outcomes from the way that the government dealt with it.

Baroness Hallett does find fault of all the devolved nations, but

this shouldn't be used as party political point scoring.

I accept the results of the inquiry in full.

I think one doesn't know how one will behave in a pandemic until one finds oneself in a pandemic.

And that, like you say, it was the same for every government having to deal with it.

However, I think we were in the very unfortunate position of having Boris Johnson in charge at the time, where he.

I remember him taking, I'm going to call it, a dishevelled approach to the whole thing, boasting about shaking hands with patients with COVID and then getting Covid himself and almost dying, which is incredibly serious.

But, you know, our Prime Minister should have a protected, protecting himself from all that because he was our leader of our country, etc.

And we know that, you know, as the pandemic rolled on, there were some very choice decisions that were made.

I mean, now looking back, eat out to help out looks like a farce.

It looks like a farcical thing that you'd maybe put in a sort of B movie.

You know, we're going through a pandemic.

It's spread by having contact with other people, it's damaging the economy.

Right, everybody go and have lunch together with a fiver off.

Apparently Chris Whitty called it eat out to help the virus, so.

And then of course, there was the PPE sort of debacle.

So I think, you know, I think there were a lot of very dubious behaviours going on.

Like I say, you know, next time round maybe we'll get it better.

But I think our greatest fault was having Boris in charge at that time.

From the handling of the COVID pandemic, we saw ourselves, the data coming out of China, out of North Italy, with lots of people dying a day.

Can you just say something and just say sorry for all of the lives that were lost during the pandemic?

I mean, you weren't in government at the time.

But you are here representing the former government.

We're not talking about a report that is calling on me or the Conservative Party today to apologize for investing, spending 350 billion pounds to ensure that 4 million people remained employed throughout the pandemic.

A rollout of a vaccine scheme which was probably the best, most well delivered in the world, by the way.

We delivered that because we didn't have to follow EU rules.

I made it absolutely clear, I am not defending some of the things that went on in number 10, some of that culture which the report identifies.

Joe, you've just fobbed that guy off in the audience who asked for an apology and in doing so, you fobbed off the whole country.

What I've said, the worst thing you can come out of it is you had your chance to speak.

Not only have you fobbed off the guy who's just asked this question for an apology, you fobbed off the whole country who have been utterly let down by the way in which the Conservative government managed this situation and it is laid bare in this report.

In number 10 Downing Street I was out there vaccinating people against the pandemic.

I trained up as a volunteer with St. John Ambulance.

My partner Connor was out in A and E working with people on ventilators to try to combat this keyword.

In order to try to get our country through this.

And we were utterly let down and undermined by the government at every turn.

Boris Johnson should be hauled into Downing street for one last Downing street press conference to apologize to the whole country.

And he should be banned from holding public office ever again in light of these failures that he's brought upon our country.

So throughout the whole of the pandemic, I worked for a national healthcare charity.

My sister is a nurse and she worked throughout, on the wards, actually

just near where you are, Josh, throughout.

I am fully aware of how difficult it was.

The government at the time made key decisions about jobs, about locking down in good faith using the advice of health professionals.

Now, I accept in full the results of the inquiry.

But if we're going to use this to blame conservatives when the report is very clear that Labour in Wales and the SNP in Scotland also got things wrong then.

I think we're failing the future generations who need us to learn from the outcomes and implement the recommendations.

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Covid inquiry: Did Boris Johnson do too little, too late? | BBC Question Time

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