Number 10 was in chaos during Covid - but the inquiry now demands our patience - Christine Jardine

There were times, I admit, at the height of the pandemic ,when I felt almost sorry for those in Government carrying the burden of responsibility for what the country was going through.

How awful to awaken every day and know that so many lives depended on your decision making. I find it difficult to feel that same empathy now that the Covid Inquiry has laid bare the culture of chaos that prevailed within Number 10.

Time and time again the evidence has demonstrated that those in power, and charged with keeping the country safe, saw themselves as above the law, often misogynist and failing to take women into account. And there is more to come.

We now know they were working to save their own skin and protecting only themselves while thousands of families could not see their loved ones or say goodbye. Worst of all there seems to have been a vacuum at the centre of power where Prime Minister Boris Johnson should have been.

Partygate may already have alerted the country to his shortcomings and cost him his office, but it had not prepared us for the scale of his government’s ineptitude.

How must it feel for those families still coping with their loss, or the impact of the pandemic on their livelihood to hear what a circus there was at the heart of decision making.

And the Scottish Government hasn’t helped with their own confusion over who has and has not deleted messages that were requested by the Inquiry.

On a personal level I have found the sheer level of incompetence and bad behaviour difficult to comprehend.

During the coalition I spent time working at the centre of Government in Number 10.

While I had little in common politically with my Conservative counterparts I did respect them. We shared a commitment to service and putting the country first. I cannot say the same for those whose record is currently being exposed.

What we have heard daily is a litany of warring factions, senior figures spiralling without direction and an inability to get to grips with any of the major issues facing our medical and public services.

It sounds increasingly as if rather than responding with the same selfless resilience as everyone from key frontline workers to members of the public working from home, our government was in danger of imploding.

But amidst the avalanche of evidence of Prime Ministerial incompetence we must not allow the facts, timings and implications of decisions to be obscured.

We have now heard confirmation that so called ‘herd immunity’ was considered as part of the original government strategy and that the decision to impose the first lockdown was possibly taken too late.

And it is their impact and consequences for the public that we all deserve to know and the question to which we need a definitive answer from the Inquiry. It will be some time before we have all the evidence and a clear picture of whether the management of the pandemic contributed to the damage it caused.

That will demand yet more patience from us all.

Unfortunately any that I was prepared to extend to Boris and his entourage over the pressure they faced has long since exhausted.

Christine Jardine is the Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West