Johnson liked to claim that he got “the big calls right” during Covid. Nothing could be further from the truth
. People know who he is and they know what he does: angry sweary self-importance combined with a messianic confidence in his own genius. Speaking as Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, his testimony yesterday was a political blockbuster, complete with a new dictionary of, seemed like it would be more sedate and restrained. There was no talk of “useless fuckpigs”. There were no blatant attempts at assassinations of political enemies. There was no vein-bulging emotional hatred.
She outlined how Johnson’s response to the early months of the Covid outbreak was typified by machismo, ignorance and baseless confidence. During those key weeks between January and March 2020, the evidence from overseas became overwhelming. It was increasingly clear we were facing a profound threat to British people’s lives.
This all took place in an atmosphere of intense sexism. She spoke of “very obvious sexist treatment” where “there were no women contributing to the policy discussions”. The dominant culture, she said, was one in which “debate and discussion was limited, junior people were talked over, everything was contaminated by ego”. This was not fundamentally an institutional problem. It was the result of the person in charge.
Other places did have a plan. Eurozone contingency documents were thorough and thought-through. They had an operations manual, a meetings manual, a communications manual. It was a plan in the normal sense of the word: outlining who was going to do what by when as part of a set strategy. Britain, on the other hand, had nothing. According to MacNamara, a much-vaunted Department of Health action plan was basically just a communications strategy document.
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