Covid report lays bare Boris Johnson’s complacency and lack of leadership

Boris Johnson acted ‘in accordance with his own optimistic disposition’ at a crucial phase in the pandemic when urgency was needed, the report found. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

In office, Boris Johnson liked to see himself as a latter-day Winston Churchill. But the Covid report describing his toxic, chaotic and indecisive No 10 ought finally to put paid to any delusions that he had the qualities necessary to be a prime minister, let alone one guiding a country through a deadly national emergency.

The claim among Johnson’s supporters that he could make a political comeback also now looks increasingly dead in the water.