This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Sturgeon once again says she wants to be “very clear” that it was not her practice to have lengthy or detailed discussions through “these means” – a reference to WhatsApp.
“It’s not my style,” she insists.
Continue reading...Ex-first minister of Scotland admits to inquiry that she failed to properly record key discussions about crisis
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted failing to properly record key discussions about the Covid crisis after being pressed at the UK Covid inquiry over claims some decisions were too centralised and secretive.
The former first minister, who led Scotland’s response to the pandemic, pushed back tears when she admitted she found the pressure of crisis “incredibly stressful”, and at times wished she had not been in charge.
An admission that crucial discussions with her closest advisers during private “gold command” meetings should have been recorded.
She regretted not telling people about Scotland’s first outbreak, involving 38 cases linked to a Nike conference in Edinburgh in March 2020, as that “had the potential to undermine public confidence”.
She acknowledged she should not have promised journalists in August 2021 that all her WhatsApp messages would be kept, knowing she had been systematically deleting them.
It was inappropriate for her to give the public health expert Devi Sridhar her private SNP email address.
She “thought wrongly” that her chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, could remain in post after admitting she breached lockdown rules by visiting her holiday home.
Continue reading...Former Scotland first minister used expletives in private messages about former UK PM’s handling of pandemic
At the Covid inquiry hearing in Edinburgh Liz Lloyd, Nicola Sturgeon’s former chief of staff, was asked about her wanting a row with the UK government. (See 11.35am.)
Asked if she was looking for a spat, Lloyd replied:
I was looking for a spat with a purpose.
It had been shown in the past that they would sometimes change their mind if they felt that pressure and I wanted them to change their mind.
Sturgeon said his address was “fucking excruciating” and that the UK communications were “awful”. Sturgeon also told Lloyd: “His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.”
Lloyd said she was “offended” on behalf of special advisers everywhere. Sturgeon replied: “He is a fucking clown.”
Continue reading...Heather Hallett’s first findings are to be published before the summer and will show how austerity and Brexit hit pandemic planning
An explosive report spelling out how the Conservative government failed to prepare the country for the Covid-19 pandemic as it obsessed about Brexit is to be released before the likely date of the next general election, the Observer has been told.
In a move that will cause alarm in Downing Street, Heather Hallett’s independent Covid-19 inquiry will issue a detailed interim report “before the summer” on the first batch of public hearings held last June and July, which revealed a catalogue of errors, including the lack of PPE and failures to act on recommendations of previous pandemic planning exercises.
Continue reading...Sir David Omand tells parliamentary inquiry the platform should be restricted to ‘background mood music’
The former head of GCHQ has called for an end to the government handling crises over WhatsApp, saying the platform might suit gossip and informal exchanges but is inappropriate for important decision-making.
Sir David Omand, who ran the UK intelligence service before becoming the permanent secretary of the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, criticised the way government was conducted in the pandemic and said future crises should be handled with “proper process”.
Continue reading...Covid inquiry has published hundreds of new pieces of evidence and written statements on its website
Back to the Covid evidence and, as Chris Smyth reports in the Times, a Treasury official has revealed that, as the government considered ways of boosting the economy in the summer of 2020, it considered issuing people with pre-paid debit cards.
Dan York-Smith, who is now the Treasury’s director general for tax and welfare and who was head of the strategy, planning and budget group during Covid, discusses the plan in his witness statement. Another proposals that was considered was to distribute vouchers for use in some retail sectors.
The first option, namely the distribution of pre-paid debit cards, presented substantial challenges and risks. For example, registering every adult in the UK would have presented very significant challenges in the time available. Even if that could be achieved, there would have been significant risks associated with tens of millions of cards being distributed through the post as part of a highly publicised and marketed scheme, such as theft, fraud and loss. That was a risk that also attached to sending out vouchers by post. A substantial customer support function would also have been required, which did not exist. The compressed timetable of the scheme increased the significance of these challenges.
It has been a pleasure working with Andrew. He is a man of great bravery and we remain hugely supportive of his campaigning on a number of issues. He rightly sees his role to raise issues of concern to his constituents. There are too few in parliament prepared to do that.
He has been an excellent constituency MP and we wish him every success in his bid for re-election in North West Leicestershire. As a reflection of that support, we have made a considerable donation to Andrew’s campaign fund.
Continue reading...Lead counsel’s quizzing of leading politicians, officials and scientists has brought him to national attention
It is not the traditional stuff of nightmares.
But you could forgive Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak if their dreams this Christmas are haunted by a mellifluously voiced man in a double-breasted suit asking polite questions that are nonetheless extremely hard to answer.
Continue reading...Damian Green says government must ‘stick to guns’ but chair of European Research Group calls for bill to be pulled and rewritten
Sunak says the PM had to balance competing interests during Covid.
Only he could do that, because only he saw all the competing arguments made by different cabinet ministers.
Your phone, you said, doesn’t retain, and nor do you have access to, text messages at all relating to the period of the crisis.
In addition, you said although on occasion you use WhatsApp to communicate around meetings and logistics and so on, you generally were only party to WhatsApp groups that were set up to deal with individual circumstances such as arrangements for calls, meetings and so on and so forth. You don’t now have access to any of the WhatsApps that you did send during the time of the crisis, do you?
I’ve changed my phone multiple times over the past few years and, as that has happened, the messages have not come across.
As you said, I’m not a prolific user of WhatsApp in the first instance – primarily communication with my private office and obviously anything that was of significance through those conversations or exchanges would have been recorded officially by my civil servants as one would expect.
Continue reading...The then chancellor’s plan proved to be of no economic benefit and was decried by scientists – but it clearly set out the political aims of ‘Dishy Rishi’
There is no blue heritage plaque above the stainless-steel open kitchen at the branch of Wagamama at London’s Festival Hall – but the restaurant might have claims to one. It was here, in delivering a couple of plates of katsu curry – one chicken, one vegan – on 8 July 2020, that our current prime minister in effect launched his campaign for the country’s leadership.
During that lockdown spring as pandemic chancellor, Rishi Sunak had one of the few enviable public roles: he was cast as the man who saved the economy by giving money away. By the time he pitched up at Wagamama that lunchtime, his various Covid-help schemes had dished out £176bn in furlough payments and loans and deferred taxes. In those efforts Sunak, little known before the crisis, had sometimes looked like the only sober and responsible member of her majesty’s government. The headline act of his summer budget statement, “eat out to help out”, changed that narrative.
Continue reading...PM likely to be asked about WhatsApp messages from pandemic that he says are irretrievable, despite reports number accessed
Fresh questions are being raised over whether Rishi Sunak has handed over all relevant material to the Covid inquiry after reports that pranksters have been able to access an old phone number he used during his time as chancellor.
The prime minister will face a day of questioning at the inquiry on Monday, where he is expected to be questioned about his claims that scientists had too much power. He will also be asked detailed questions about the “eat out to help out” scheme that many experts believe allowed the virus to spread.
Continue reading...Rare moments of candour from the former prime minister did little to assuage the anger of bereaved families
Since being forced out of office last year, Boris Johnson will have had many moments to reflect on his time in Downing Street and to ponder what he might have done differently.
At the UK Covid-19 inquiry on Thursday, he shared one of those reflections, and – perhaps unsurprisingly, as it ultimately led to his downfall as prime minister – it concerned his handling of the Downing Street lockdown parties.
Continue reading...Former PM says he ‘frankly assumed’ Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had been involved in talks about scheme
Johnson has walked back claims that Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance were present to “properly discuss” the eat out to help out scheme before it went live, conceding that no scientists attended meetings about the scheme.
Johnson said he had “frankly assumed” they were involved in talks about the scheme with the Treasury and that he was “surprised it was smuggled past them”.
Continue reading...Former PM also angrily denies comments he made about letting Covid ‘rip’ meant he had been uncaring
Boris Johnson assumed that Rishi Sunak’s flagship “eat out to help out” hospitality scheme had been cleared by government scientists and was surprised to learn later it was not, the former prime minister has told the inquiry into Covid.
In evidence that could pose notable difficulties for the prime minister when he appears before the inquiry on Monday, Johnson said it would have been “normal” for advisers such as Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance to have been briefed, and that he assumed this had been the case.
Continue reading...Former prime minister also admits he should have worked more closely with devolved administrations
Hugo Keith KC is questioning Johnson.
He asks if Johnson’s approach has been to give all relevant material to the inquiry.
I understand the feelings of these victims and their families and I am deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and suffering of those victims and their families.
Continue reading...We fact check the assertion at the Covid inquiry that Britain was ‘well down the European table, and well down the world table’
Boris Johnson has questioned the assertion by the lead counsel in Britain’s Covid inquiry that Britain was among the worst performers in western Europe in terms of the number of excess deaths recorded during the pandemic.
The former prime minister told Hugo Keith KC on Wednesday that the UK was “well down the European table, and well down the world table”.
Continue reading...Ex-PM tells inquiry abusive messages between staff were inevitable passion of people ‘doing their best’ under great stress
Boris Johnson has insisted he was not properly warned about the potential seriousness of Covid during early 2020, as he dismissed abusive messages sent between his staff as the inevitable passion of people who were “doing their best”.
In a sometimes combative start to his evidence before the Covid inquiry in London, which began with protesters being removed from the hearing room, Johnson apologised for mistakes made, but then argued that these were not necessarily errors that could have been avoided.
Continue reading...Technical team unable to view any messages for four months from before arrival of virus to after first lockdown
The mystery of Boris Johnson’s Covid-era WhatsApp messages has taken another twist the day before the former prime minister gives evidence to the inquiry into the pandemic, after it was reported that nearly six months of messages could not be retrieved.
There has already been a lengthy saga over the evidence Johnson has submitted, with Rishi Sunak’s government refusing to hand over the ex-PM’s unredacted messages, notebooks and diaries until ordered to do so by the high court.
Continue reading...Covid inquiry expected to be told former PM was open to ‘military options’ to obtain ‘impounded’ jabs from factory in Leiden
Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Covid-19 inquiry is not until Wednesday but it is already making headlines in the Netherlands amid a mixture of amusement and alarm at claims he asked for British spies to plan a “raid” on a Dutch vaccine plant.
The operation – according to sources who briefed Johnson’s employer, the Daily Mail – would have taken place against the backdrop of a tit-for-tat row in March 2021 between the then prime minister and the EU, which was moving towards restricting exports of vaccines across the Channel.
Continue reading...Discredited ex-PM faces a demolition job in one of the few policy areas to which he and his allies still cling
Even at the height of his popularity, Boris Johnson routinely avoided close questioning – to the extent of once hiding in a fridge to dodge a TV inquisitor. The former UK prime minister is likely to be dreading next week’s appearance at the Covid inquiry. And he probably should.
It is no exaggeration to say that events on Wednesday and Thursday at the inquiry’s repurposed office building in Paddington, west London, could help define the post-power image and legacy of Johnson, and very possibly not for the good.
Continue reading...Health secretary during pandemic returns to inquiry after saying tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if UK had locked down earlier
Gordon Brown has said political briefings against Alistair Darling in 2008 were “completely unfair”, as he paid tribute to his former chancellor following his death aged 70.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former prime minister said Darling was a “compassionate politician who wanted to get things done” but was “always very quiet in the way he did it”.
Continue reading...