A public inquiry released on Thursday slammed the former UK government’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic as “too little, too late”, and said the failure to lock down the country earlier “led to an unacceptable loss of life”.
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The report accused Johnson of being too “optimistic” in his outlook in the early months of 2020. And she said his special adviser, Dominic Cummings, used “offensive, sexualised and misogynistic” language as he “poisoned” the atmosphere at the heart of the government.
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“Mr Johnson should have appreciated sooner that this was an emergency that required prime ministerial leadership to inject urgency into the response,” the report said.
When he appeared before the committee in 2023, Johnson said his government had been too complacent and had “vastly underestimated” the risks, saying he understood the public’s anger.