Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has launched a scathing attack on the official COVID-19 Inquiry, branding its report as 'totally muddled' and accusing its chair of 'breathtaking inconsistency'. The inquiry, which Mr Johnson himself established during his premiership, found that failures to take the virus seriously early on cost tens of thousands of lives.
A Clash Over Lockdowns and Legacy
In a detailed article for the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson vehemently rejected the inquiry's central conclusion that his government presided over a toxic and chaotic culture. He argued that the report, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, failed to address what he considers the 'big questions': the origin of the virus and whether lockdowns were ultimately worthwhile.
The former Prime Minister expressed frustration that the inquiry, which cost nearly £200 million, seemed to criticise his government for not imposing lockdowns sooner and more harshly. 'She seems, if anything, to want more lockdowns,' he wrote, 'just when the rest of the world has been thinking that lockdowns were probably wildly overdone.'
The Inquiry's Damning Findings
Baroness Hallett's report, published on Saturday 22 November 2025, presented a starkly different picture. It concluded that the first and second lockdowns were not inevitable, but became the only option after the government delayed crucial measures like social distancing and household quarantine.
The inquiry found that a staggering 23,000 lives could have been saved during the pandemic's first wave in 2020 if a mandatory lockdown had been introduced just one week earlier. It described the overall UK response to the pandemic as 'too little, too late' and criticised all four UK governments for failing to grasp the scale of the threat.
Johnson's Defence and Regrets
Despite his strong criticisms, Mr Johnson, who appeared before the inquiry in October, struck a conciliatory note on some points. He stated he remains 'full of regret for the things the government I led got wrong and full of sympathy for all those who suffered'.
He defended his government's actions, insisting that everyone involved was 'doing our level best under pretty difficult circumstances to get it right and to save lives'. He pointed to advice issued a week before the first lockdown, which told people to self-isolate with symptoms, work from home, and avoid non-essential contact.
Ultimately, the former Prime Minister suggested the report should be filed 'vertically', a clear dismissal of its findings and recommendations, cementing a deep divide between the inquiry's conclusions and his own account of the UK's pandemic management.
