Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologized on Wednesday, December 6 to the families of Covid victims, and admitted to having been “wrong on certain points”, during his hearing as part of the public inquiry into the pandemic of Covid-19. “I am deeply sorry for the pain, loss and suffering” of these victims and their families, Boris Johnson said in the introduction to this highly anticipated hearing.
This apology, however, was interrupted by four protesters saying “we don’t want his apology! », before being kicked out of the room. “Inevitably, we were wrong on certain points,” continued the former head of the conservative government, saying he took “personal responsibility” for the decisions taken at the time. “I think we did our best (…) in very difficult circumstances. (…) Are there things we should have done differently? Unquestionably. »
Mr. Johnson will have to answer difficult questions during this hearing scheduled to last two days, after strong criticism from former collaborators. Since the hearings began in June, these collaborators, including several advisers and scientists, have described an overwhelmed, indecisive prime minister with little concern for victims when the pandemic broke out in early 2020, and a divided and chaotic government.
Did Mr Johnson take too long to impose a first lockdown at the end of March 2020? Had he taken stock of the pandemic? Did he understand the science? Was he indifferent to the victims, especially the elderly?
Apologies already rejected
“It was the wrong crisis for the skills of the Prime Minister,” Lee Cain, former director of communications at Downing Street, told the committee at the end of October, referring to Boris Johnson pushing back decisions and constantly changing decisions. opinion, based on the last person who spoke to him.
A brilliant orator, Mr. Johnson, 59, quicker to kick in with humor than to respond with precision, still has a lot to do to convince that at the start of 2020 he was the man for the job.
His apology has already been rejected by Aamer Anwar, the lawyer for a Scottish association of Covid victims, Scottish Covid Bereaved. “Instead of resolving the crisis,” Boris Johnson has “presided over a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism,” he told reporters outside the building where the hearing is taking place. “He let the bodies pile up and the elderly be treated like toxic waste,” he added.
Covid-19 has killed more than 232,000 people in the UK. The former prime minister carefully prepared his defense, read 6,000 pages of documents, and locked up for hours with his lawyers, according to the daily The Times, which revealed the main points of his intervention.