Boris ‘wanted to scrap lockdowns & other ‘medieval’ pandemic controls’

BORIS Johnson wanted to scrap lockdowns and other “medieval” pandemic controls, the Covid inquiry heard yesterday.

It also emerged the man who later became Britain’s top civil servant thought that the then-PM’s administration was “mad” and “self-defeating”.

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The inquiry heard evidence of how Mr Johnson struggled to decide on a second lockdown.

In notes, he wrote: “What do we really achieve by smashing up the economy if we have no idea how many times we are going to have to do it?”

Mr Johnson did finally impose a second lockdown and now faces claims of dithering to do so.

One top official wrote in a statement that Mr Johnson said he would rather “let the bodies pile high” than impose another lockdown.

And extracts from top doc Sir Patrick Vallance’s diary describe a “very bad meeting in No10” with both the PM and then Chancellor Rishi Sunak “clutching at straws”.

In an exchange of private messages seen yesterday, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case said he had “never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country” than Mr Johnson’s No10.

He added: “These people are so mad . . . Not poisonous towards me (yet), but madly self-defeating.”

The inquiry also heard that in the early days of the pandemic, Mr Johnson offered to be injected with Covid to “demonstrate to the public it did not pose a threat”.

The PM’s ex-chief of staff Lord Udny-Lister called it “an unfortunate comment”.

Inquiry continues.