One by one, former ministers lay bare how we failed to prepare for a Covid-style crisis
The former chancellor defended the Conservatives' austerity measures as he appeared before the inquiry, ITV News Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana reports
It is fascinating watching former senior politicians - from the prime minister down - appear in front of the Covid inquiry and lay bare just how badly prepared we were for the crisis that would soon hit the country.
Then, Sir Oliver Letwin - who had been in charge of the country's resilience to crises - said he believes that our critical national infrastructure was, and still is, "wildly under-resilient".
After them former chancellor, George Osborne, with his own admission - that there had been no planning whatsoever for a lockdown.
He argued that the same was true across the West, and questioned if countries would have locked down had China not done so previously. He also urged the inquiry to examine difficult "human" questions like whether it was right to lock down schools given the damage it meant for children.
Both Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron strongly deny that their policy of austerity (which included public health spending shifting to councils and getting squeezed) left the health service less able to cope.
Mr Cameron actually said that austerity helped us to be ready, arguing cutting the deficit meant a more stable economy, and that "economic resilience" was key.
Many working in the health service strongly disagree. Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said the comments would anger nurses who faced massive shortages by the time Covid hit.
The British Medical Association delivered a similar analysis.
But even Dame Sally Davies, the former chief medical officer, talked today of disinvestment in public health and of the UK having far fewer doctors, nurses and hospital beds per head compared with similar countries.
She also spoke of the focus on flu not a coronavirus type virus (saying she suggested modelling Sars after a visit to Hong Kong but was told "it won't come here") and said the lack of planning for lockdown was a failure. The former CMO became emotional as she said sorry to bereaved families for their losses but also the "horrible" way their loved ones had died.
While the former PM would not be moved on the question of deficit cutting, he was pretty frank about flu planning.
He repeatedly said questions were not asked about the possibility of a more respiratory disease, and in particular one that spread asymptomatically.
He mentioned former health secretary - now chancellor - Jeremy Hunt, who has pointed out in evidence that Hong Kong had stockpiled three months of PPE. Mr Cameron said he would have done that - if he'd been told to - as it wasn't expensive.
But again - he said - it was a lack of questioning about a Covid-style pandemic.
But scientists have pointed out to me, that you can use lockdown for flu, but it simply wasn't considered. Even in March 2020 Sage scientists thought about a lockdown but alone because ministers still weren't asking about it.
Tomorrow could be an interesting day as Mr Hunt takes the stand. The now chancellor and former health secretary was under the spotlight yesterday when previously confidential minutes from a Department of Health board meeting in 2016 were shown that warned of the impact of a pandemic including up to 300,000 people needing critical care.
But one person was notably missing from that meeting - Mr Hunt - and members expressed concern about his "lack of engagement". that is the type of difficult question he will face on Wednesday.
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