Is Boris Johnson right that UK had fewer Covid deaths than much of Europe?

Bereaved family members hold up posters and pictures of their loved ones as Boris Johnson testified at the Covid inquiry on Wednesday. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Boris Johnson has questioned the assertion by the lead counsel in Britain’s Covid inquiry that Britain was among the worst performers in western Europe in terms of the number of excess deaths recorded during the pandemic.

The former prime minister told Hugo Keith KC on Wednesday that the UK was “well down the European table, and well down the world table”.