Controversial former government adviser Dominic Cummings gave Boris Johnson the nickname “the shopping trolley”, claiming his former boss was always “smashing from one side of the aisle to the other” during the pandemic.
hatsApp conversations with ministers and officials show Mr Johnson veering between lockdown sceptic and lockdown zealot as he reacted to the ever-changing data.
Mr Johnson’s biggest internal conflict came over the three national lockdowns that were controversially imposed in 2020 and 2021.
A libertarian by nature, Mr Johnson repeatedly changed his mind over forcing people to stay at home depending on who he had been talking to. In July 2020, Mr Johnson described the idea of a second lockdown as the “nuclear option”. In October 2020, he described the idea as “the height of absurdity”. Yet in June 2020, when the country was still in the grip of the first national lockdown, Mr Johnson’s attitude seemed to be different.
In May 2020, he told Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, that he was worried that a fall in infections would increase the pressure on the government to lift lockdown.
These messages came only a month after Mr Johnson had been discharged from hospital after coming close to losing his life to Covid.
On July 19, Mr Johnson made his comment about a second lockdown being a “nuclear option”. However, by the end of July, he was worrying about “complacency” over social distancing following the loosening of restrictions — and was again talking about tougher measures.
Later that month, he had changed his mind about enforcement and was firing off early morning WhatsApps to Mr Hancock, Professor Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, and Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser.
By September, Mr Johnson’s attention had turned to easing restrictions on bloodsports. The following day, the government announced that shooting and hunting would be exempted from the “rule of six” curbs on social gatherings.
At the end of October 2020, Mr Johnson was wrestling with the decision of whether to put the country into lockdown for a second time.
From November 5, 2020, the guidance for clinically vulnerable people became “stay at home at all times, unless for exercise or medical appointments”.
Letters sent to those deemed vulnerable told them that it was not a return to the “very restrictive shielding advice” of earlier in the year, but strongly advised them against going to the shops, and to minimise contact with other people if they were over 70 or had general underlying health conditions. Two days later, on November 7, Mr Johnson seemed to have buyer’s regret.
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2023]