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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Politics
Jane Kirby and Nic Cecil

Government ‘chaos’ under Boris Johnson and failure to tackle Covid cost 23,000 lives, inquiry finds

Chaos at the heart of government and a failure to take Covid-19 seriously cost 23,000 lives in the first wave of the pandemic, a public inquiry has concluded in a damning report.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson presided over a "toxic" culture in Number 10 and regularly changed his mind, while cabinet members including health secretary Matt Hancock plus key scientists all failed to act with the urgency needed to tackle the virus.

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