Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson apologised for mistakes made during his government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic but insisted he did his '"level best” while in charge.
Mr Johnson said he was “deeply sorry for the pain, loss and suffering” of those who lost loved ones as he appeared at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in west London on Wednesday.
But his apology was interrupted by four people who were removed from the hearing room after they held up signs reading: “The dead can’t hear your apologies.”
“I do hope this inquiry will get the answers to the difficult questions,” Mr Johnson said in his opening remarks.
Britain recorded an estimated 230,000 deaths due to Covid after the outbreak in early 2020.
Mr Johnson told the inquiry that there were unquestionably things he would have done differently while in charge of the pandemic response but insisted “we did our level best” in “very difficult” circumstances.
He went on to acknowledge that his government made errors, saying: “So many people suffered, so many people lost their lives.
“Inevitably, in the course of trying to handle a very, very difficult pandemic in which we had to balance appalling harms on either side of the decision, we may have made mistakes.”
Among the decisions he takes responsibility for are the speed of the government’s response to the pandemic in 2020, the lockdown decisions and their timeliness, the explosion of the virus in the residential care sector, the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and the decision not to introduce a circuit-breaker later in 2020, he confirmed.
Mr Johnson also said: “I take personal responsibility for all the decisions that we made.”
He also suggested his government did not fully believe some of the forecasts that were being made in the early stages of the pandemic, saying “we have to put our hands up” and acknowledge they were unable to comprehend the implications.
“I don’t think we attached enough credence to those forecasts, and because of the experience that we’d had with other zoonotic diseases, I think collectively in Whitehall there was not a sufficiently loud enough klaxon of alarm.”
Pressed repeatedly on why the UK had such a high rate of excess deaths – the second-worst in Europe after Italy – he cited headwinds, including an “extremely elderly population” with many health issues and being a “very densely populated country”, which “did not help”.
Challenged over the slow response to the unfolding crisis, he said ministers should have “twigged much sooner” the need for action and added that it was only when he saw the “horrors” of the outbreak in Italy in February that year that he realised its seriousness.
The only easy decision during the pandemic was to distribute vaccines, Mr Johnson said.
The former prime minister appeared to become emotional as he discussed his “anxiety” about possible behavioural fatigue if he imposed a lockdown too early without a vaccination programme.
He looked to be on the verge of tears as he described 2020 as a “tragic, tragic” year.
Mr Johnson defended keeping former health secretary Matt Hancock in his post, despite calls from his aide Dominic Cummings that he should have been sacked.
Mr Hancock “may have had defects”, Mr Johnson said, but “I thought that he was doing his best in very difficult circumstances and I thought he was a good communicator”.
He was also grilled on what previous witnesses to the inquiry have described as a toxic atmosphere in Downing Street and the influence of Mr Cummings, his chief adviser at the time.
The former British leader said people were “very frazzled” when confronted with expletive-laden WhatsApp exchanges involving Mr Cummings.
The tone of the private messages was a “reflection of the agony” the country was going through, he said.
Mr Johnson said his No 10 was made up of “a lot of highly talented, highly motivated people who are stricken with anxiety about what is happening about the pandemic, who are doing their best and who, like all human beings under great stress and great anxiety about themselves and their own performance, will be inclined to be critical of others”.
Me Johnson said he was “not sure” whether his government's decisions had caused excess deaths. He said that deciding when to impose lockdowns and other restrictions had been “painful.”
He also denied deleting WhatsApp messages after it emerged he had not been able to provide the inquiry with any communications from February to June 2020.
Asked what his approach had been to the disclosure of his own Covid-related emails, WhatsApps and notes, Mr Johnson said: “I’ve done my best to give everything of any conceivable relevance.”
Inquiry counsel Hugo Keith KC said a technical report provided by Mr Johnson’s solicitors suggested there may have been a factory reset at the end of January 2020 followed by an attempt to reinstate the contents in June 2020, but the former prime minister denied knowledge of that.
“I don’t remember any such thing,” he said.
Before Mr Johnson’s evidence began, Lady Hallett complained about the briefings to the press, saying that leaks of the witness statement undermined the process.
She said: “Failing to respect confidentiality undermines the inquiry’s ability to do its job fairly, effectively and independently.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Read more from Aya Iskandarani
The essentials
What: Emirates Airline Festival of Literature
When: Friday until March 9
Where: All main sessions are held in the InterContinental Dubai Festival City
Price: Sessions range from free entry to Dh125 tickets, with the exception of special events.
Hot Tip: If waiting for your book to be signed looks like it will be timeconsuming, ask the festival’s bookstore if they have pre-signed copies of the book you’re looking for. They should have a bunch from some of the festival’s biggest guest authors.
Information: www.emirateslitfest.com
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more from Janine di Giovanni
Most F1 world titles
7 — Michael Schumacher (1994, ’95, 2000, ’01 ’02, ’03, ’04)
7 — Lewis Hamilton (2008, ’14,’15, ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20)
5 — Juan Manuel Fangio (1951, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57)
4 — Alain Prost (1985, ’86, ’89, ’93)
4 — Sebastian Vettel (2010, ’11, ’12, ’13)
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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The Brutalist
Director: Brady Corbet
Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn
Rating: 3.5/5
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
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Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
- Flexible work arrangements
- Pension support
- Mental well-being assistance
- Insurance coverage for optical, dental, alternative medicine, cancer screening
- Financial well-being incentives
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