Covid Inquiry: Emotional Boris Johnson insists 'to say I didn't care is simply not right'

Boris Johnson complained about 'absolutely absurd' public characterisations of the Partygate scandal, ITV News UK Editor Paul Brand reports

An emotional Boris Johnson has insisted that accusations he "didn't care" about the suffering people endured as a result of coronavirus are "simply not right".

At the Covid-19 Inquiry, the former prime minister spoke publicly for the first time about being hospitalised with the virus, insisting it made him realise just "how appalling" it was.

But while the ex-PM apologised on Thursday for the "offence caused" by rule-breaking pandemic parties in Downing Street, he attacked the media and called its representations of the Partygate scandal a "travesty of the truth".

The way Number 10 gatherings were portrayed were described by Mr Johnson as "absolutely absurd", arguing "what is supposed to have happened in Downing Street is a million miles from the reality of what actually happened in Number 10".

More than 100 police fines were issued for rule-breaking parties held in and around the centre of government during the pandemic, and Mr Johnson received one of them.

Mr Johnson's appearance before the Inquiry was his second in two days, as part of the probe's module on UK decision-making and political governance.

It was emotional at stages from Mr Johnson, who drew upon his own experience in intensive care with coronavirus "for the first time", to dispute claims he didn't "care".

"When I went into intensive care, I saw around me a lot of people who were not actually elderly. They were middle-aged men and they were quite like me," he told Hugo Keith KC. “And some of us were going to make it, some of us weren’t. “And what I am trying to tell you in a nutshell, and the NHS thank God did an amazing job and helped me survive, but I knew from that experience, what an appalling disease this is. “I had absolutely no personal doubt about that from March onwards. To say that I didn’t care about the suffering that was being inflicted on the country is simply not right.” Mr Keith responded: “I have never suggested you didn’t care about the suffering. I suggested you didn’t care about the reaction to the behaviour.”

Boris Johnson disputes accusations he 'didn't care' about suffering during the pandemic

On the Partygate scandal, which eventually led in large part to Mr Johnson's Downing Street downfall, the inquiry was shown a WhatsApp message sent by the ex-PM to Britain's most senior civil servant, Simon Case, when reports first emerged of pandemic parties.

On December 17, 2021, Mr Johnson wrote: "In retrospect we all should have told people – above all Lee Cain – to think about their behaviour in number ten and how it would look. But now we must smash on."

Contradicting his early denials about gatherings inside Number 10, Mr Johnson appears in the messages to be aware of the gatherings and, crucially, that they broke the rules.

He said: "I really want to emphasise, and you talk about the impression, the version of events that has entered the popular consciousness about what is supposed to have happened in Downing Street is a million miles from the reality of what actually happened in Number 10".

He said he was speaking on behalf of “hundreds and hundreds of hard-working civil servants who thought that they were following the rules”, and that the “characterisation, the representation, has been of what civil servants and advisers were doing in Number 10 has been a travesty of the truth”.

In June, a damning report by MPs found the ex-PM committed "repeated" and "serious" contempts of Parliament by deliberately misleading MPs with his denials over the scandal.

What did Boris Johnson really know about Downing Street’s notorious parties? With fresh revelations from our sources, in their own words, listen to the definitive behind-closed-doors story of one of the biggest scandals of our era.

Did Boris Johnson want to let Covid 'rip'?

Mr Johnson said he did not back a "let it rip" strategy, despite the term being regularly used in discussions inside Downing Street.

The former PM strongly rejected the idea that he backed such an idea as the government grappled with rising cases in September 2020.

He did, however, concede that the idea behind the phrasing came from discussions within Number 10, while he worked on a response to the impending second wave.

Mr Johnson was confronted with diary entries from Sir Patrick Vallance, the government's former chief scientific adviser, who claimed the ex-PM was "obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life".

In another entry from October, the top scientist said the then-prime minister was “obsessed with [the] average age of death being 82”.

Later, in May 2021, Sir Patrick wrote: “PM meeting – Cx (Chancellor, then Rishi Sunak) suddenly pipes up on incentives already in place. Argues that we should let it rip a bit.”

Mr Johnson firmly denied that the extracts represented a glimpse into a government that favoured no national lockdown “until the last possible moment” and instead stressed his administration backed a tiered system.

'Eat Out to Help Out' or 'Eat Out to Help the Virus Out'?

In a statement, Mr Johnson told the inquiry that “Chris (Whitty) and Patrick (Vallance) must have known, or did know, about Eat Out to Help Out”.

This is despite the pair stating the opposite before the Inquiry, that they only became aware of the scheme when it was announced to the public.

"I said that because it wasn’t a very secret thing," Mr Johnson insisted.

"It was, I thought, a pretty well-publicised scheme, and I’m fairly confident that it was discussed several times in meetings in which I believe they must have been present."

He said he understands now that the pair did not feel they were properly consulted, but added: “I don’t quite understand how that could have happened”.

“I remember being surprised, later, I think it was in September, when Chris says ‘this is eat out to help the virus’," he added.

“And I thought, ‘well, that’s funny’, because I didn’t remember any previous controversy about it.”

He also admitted that the tier system, introduced in a bid to stem cases of Covid-19 during the pandemic, did not work but insisted it was “worth a try”. Asked about the furore over Dominic Cummings’ infamous trip to Barnard Castle, he described it as a “bad moment”. Finishing his evidence, Mr Johnson told the Inquiry he was "rather sad" it had finished, adding it is "very important" to get to the bottom of how the virus originated.

Concluding, he said: “I am rather sad it is over. I may not see you again, so I just wanted to say one thing, which is that I do think all the testimony and the evidence is incredibly valuable…"

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