Michael Gove apologises after Covid report alleges ‘toxic’ culture

Former minister Lord Michael Gove has apologized on behalf of the government of the day and the Conservative Party for “mistakes made” during the coronavirus pandemic.

In her much-anticipated report released, Baroness Hallett claims then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson oversaw a “toxic and chaotic” culture at No 10 during Covid.

Lord Gove told the BBC’s Today program that some “attitudes” in Downing Street were “far from ideal”, but added that in a crisis “the business of government cannot be conducted in the manner of a Jane Austen novel”.

He also said an earlier lockdown would have been “wiser”, but questioned the report’s claim that it would have led to fewer deaths.

Responding to the report, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government would learn from the report and was “already taking steps to ensure that not only the NHS but the government as a whole is prepared for a number of contingencies”.

The 800-page inquiry report is highly critical of the government’s decision-making and claims that implementing a Covid lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives during the first wave in England – although it does not suggest the overall death toll would have been reduced.

It also says the lockdowns could have been avoided if the government had introduced restrictions such as social distancing and concludes that lockdowns “only became inevitable due to the acts and omissions of the four governments” in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The report describes February 2020 as a “wasted month” and says the government’s lack of urgency was “inexcusable”.

He says lessons from the first wave of Covid were not learned and restrictions were introduced too slowly in autumn 2020.

By Christmas of the same year, the survey claims that governments took no action “until infection levels were critical”.

Johnson, who served as Prime Minister between 2019 and 2022 and set up the investigation, is accused in the report of not making decisions quickly enough in the fall of 2020 – and of changing his mind several times.

He has been contacted for comment.

Lord Gove rejected the idea that the findings of the Covid report would end any future political ambitions for Johnson.

He said Johnson’s decision-making style “may not be to everyone’s taste” but added that he was “grappling with an extremely difficult question around restricting freedom and maintaining access to health care.”

“More than that, without his drive, we would not have had his vaccine rollout that helped ensure we were the first country to get vaccines into arms.”

Dominic Cummings, a senior Downing Street official at the time, is criticized in the report, which suggests he displayed “destabilizing behavior” and contributed to a “culture of fear” that “poisoned the atmosphere.”

He also said the loudest voices in government were winning out – and many of them were being ignored “to the detriment of good decision-making”.

Cummings, who left Number 10 at the end of 2020, accused the investigation of enabling “a vast rewriting of history”.

He said it was “important for the public to realize that on most of the big questions, the ‘experts’, including top scientists, were dead wrong” in the first months of 2020.

Lord Gove said Cummings had a responsibility to ensure data was “interrogated accurately and thoroughly”.

He also said the report noted that Cummings’ interventions had been “essential in putting in place the measures necessary to suppress the virus”.

Asked about the culture of Downing Street, he said: “We were indeed faced, like everyone else in the world, with an unprecedented crisis… and of course, under the pressure of imperfect information, mistakes are made, voices are raised.”

Rishi Sunak, who was chancellor during the pandemic, told BBC 5 Live’s Matt Chorley that the government and scientists were “operating in a very uncertain environment”.

“I think we need to look at decisions made in this light, but it is important that lessons are learned so that we can be better prepared in the event of another pandemic.”

Baroness Hallett also criticized Sir Chris Wormald – he is currently cabinet secretary, the government’s most senior civil servant, but during the pandemic he was permanent secretary at the Department of Health.

She said he had failed to take action to “rectify the over-enthusiastic impression” given by then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock about the department’s ability to deal with the pandemic.

Asked on Radio 4’s Today program whether Sir Chris should keep his job, given criticism of the report, Secretary of State for Science Liz Kendall said “yes”, adding that he was doing “an excellent job in government, including learning the lessons from this pandemic”.