Lack of ICU capacity was ‘political choice’, Chris Whitty tells Covid inquiry – as it happened

Chris Whitty arriving at the Covid inquiry in London on Thursday Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

5.46pm BST

Afternoon summary

• A senior doctor repeatedly broke down in tears as he described how the Covid crisis for NHS staff was like having to respond to a “terrorist attack every day”, with infected patients “raining from the sky”.

• Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, has told the Covid inquiry that Britain went into the pandemic with “very low” intensive care capacity compared with other wealthy countries and that this was “a political choice”. (See 12.35pm.)

• Elon Musk has hit back at the UK government after he was not invited to an international investment summit following his controversial social media posts during last month’s riots. The Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has said said she is “a huge fan” of Musk. (See 9.35am.)

5.40pm BST

Today the House of Commons Library has published its final, most comprehensive analysis of the general election results. If you have any political geek tendencies, it’s a must read.

At the election 263 of the MPs elected (40%) were women – the highest number and proportion ever. This chart is good on which of the parties were best and worst in terms of the proportion of candidates who were female.

And this chart is interesting too, showing, among other things, that more than half of Labour MPs are newly-elected, and that the Lib Dems have more women MPs than the Tories do.

If you enjoy data like this, there are 128 pages of it here.