There is another fact lying at the heart of this dispute that could form a core part of the inquiry’s findings: it is that Sunak’s record during the pandemic raises serious questions about his judgement 🖋️ IanDunt for ipaperviews
Sunak is hiding behind Johnson. The Cabinet Office has told the inquiry that there are “important issues of principle” over passing on Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and diaries.
That applies to both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. The former prime minister was asked to hand over “all material requested by the Covid inquiry” to the Cabinet Office, starting, naturally, in January 2020. Instead, he acted whiter-than-white and made a big deal of how open he was being, while only handing over material dated from April 2021, after the last lockdown had ended.Sunak, meanwhile, is hiding behind Johnson.
Given the scale of the task the inquiry faces, the balance of risk lands firmly on disclosure rather than secrecy. Failing to understand what happened in that period is a much greater risk than a potential moderate chilling effect in ministerial conversation. Hospitality needed help. But then, there were plenty of things the Government could have done. It could have helped restaurants serve people outdoors, for instance through paying for outdoor heaters and helping to challenge local restrictions. It could have spent the money providing ventilation to those places that could not serve outdoors to inhibit the transfer of Covid. Indeed,. This was repeatedly stated by scientists – and repeatedly ignored.
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