Johnson oversaw ‘toxic culture’ in No 10, inquiry finds

Boris Johnson oversaw a “toxic and chaotic” culture within the government that led to poor Covid decision-making, an investigation into the pandemic response has found.

In a long-awaited report, inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said the former prime minister should have responded more urgently to the developing crisis.

She also criticized his communication style, which failed to “convey an appropriate sense of caution” and undermined official health messages, she said.

Johnson's former chief adviser Dominic Cummings was also described as a “destabilizing force” and former health secretary Matt Hancock was criticized in the 800-page report.

Former judge Baroness Hallett told Cummings that abruptly left number 10 in late 2020, after internal battles over his role, helped create a “culture of fear” that “poisoned the atmosphere” in Downing Street.

Cummings had “fallen far from his proper role” as an adviser, she added, and was trying to make “key decisions” in Johnson's place – a situation with which the former prime minister seemed happy, she wrote.

He also “significantly contributed to a toxic and sexist workplace culture,” including using “offensive, sexualized and misogynistic language” in messages, the investigation found.

The report said Cummings was also a frequent catalyst for action and was one of the first political figures to demand strategy meetings and modeling of the fight against Covid.

Along with civil servants, Cummings helped set up a Covid-19 task force within the Cabinet Office, which the report said improved the coordination of the government's response.

Hancock, who has led the health department through much of the pandemic, has developed a reputation in Downing Street for “over-promising and under-delivering”, she added.

She noted that there were concerns “about Hancock's veracity and reliability at UK government meetings” and that civil servants had to “double-check what we were told.”

Baroness Hallett said it was vital that leaders were “candid” about the scale of the problems during an emergency, but Hancock “did not take that approach” to the crisis.

The report said Johnson's leadership style had exacerbated the problems as he “vacillated” on restrictions, allowing the virus to spread at a rapid pace.

While acknowledging the “profound” decisions he faced, Baroness Hallett concluded he delayed making decisions when “timely decision-making was important”.

The report said Johnson's “expressions of over-optimism” about the impact of Covid had also undermined official health advice, including talk of shaking hands in hospital the day before a hand-washing campaign began.

Cummings' trip to Barnard Castle and the rule-breaking “party” gatherings also “undermined public trust and increased the risk of people not following the rules meant to protect them”, Baroness Hallett said.

Cummings responded to the investigation by accusing it of “a huge rewriting of history” and failing to challenge scientists' version of events.

In a statement on social media posted shortly before the report's release, the former aide added: “The 'experts' were almost completely wrong, and the entire system has worked to cover it up since then, including the investigation.”

Johnson has not yet responded to the report.

Hancock, who resigned as physician in June 2021 after he violated social distancing guidelines by kissing a colleague and did not stand for re-election in last year's election, he has also yet to respond to the report.

The report is the conclusion of the second chapter of a long-running investigation that examined how UK politicians handled the response to the virus.

Baroness Hallett discovered that Great Britain it's too late to consider the idea of ​​quarantine suppress the disease in 2020, when the need for severe restrictions became “inevitable”.

But she also concluded that the lockdown “could have been shorter or not needed at all” if initial steps to limit its spread had been taken earlier.

Neither the UK government nor the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had a strategy for exiting the first lockdown and did not pay “sufficient attention to the possibility of a second wave”, the report said.

The Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which encouraged people to return to restaurants, “may have contributed to the belief that the pandemic was effectively over”, although ministers knew further waves were likely.