When Boris Johnson finally agreed to a judge-led public inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic, he praised the eminent former judge he chose to lead it.
“She brings a wealth of experience to the role and I know she shares my determination for the inquiry to look forensically and comprehensively at the government’s response to the pandemic,” the former prime minister said of Heather Hallett and her future endeavours, back. December 2021.
Lady Hallett, the daughter of a policeman, had already made her mark, repeatedly, throughout a long and stellar legal career. In 1998, she became the first woman to chair the Bar Council, before being appointed a high court judge in 1999. In 2009, she was chosen to act as coroner for the inquest into the 52 victims of the July 7 London attacks. At one point, she received strong support to become the first female Chief Justice of England and Wales.
A good friend in the legal profession describes her as “not only a brilliant lawyer but also incredibly politically astute”.
For Johnson, however, the appointment is turning into something of a nightmare, even before Hallett holds his first public hearings next month.
Last week, his inquiry demanded that the Cabinet Office release Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and diary entries from the time in order to form a full picture of how the government worked and, presumably, why to have a sense of how things were being handled professionally or otherwise. at the heart of power as the Covid crisis grew.
Hallett has said failure to hand over the unredacted material, which also includes Johnson’s notebooks containing contemporary notes, would be a criminal offence.
The inquiry is now on a collision course with the former prime minister who set it up and the Cabinet Office, which sits at the heart of government.
Boris Johnson has been referred to the police over further suspicions of breaching Covid rules. Photo: Jonathan Brady/PA
All this, along with the news that the Cabinet Office had, in a separate move, referred Johnson to the police after his diary revealed previously unreported visits by friends to Checkers during the pandemic, according to his friends, it has put Johnson in the mood. desolate despair
It was only a few months ago that his allies were talking about a political comeback for the former prime minister. Now, with the privileges committee also due to report soon on whether he misled parliament about the Covid parties in Downing Street, there doesn’t seem to be any more controversy and trouble ahead.
His fellow MPs are beginning to wonder more and more whether it is good, or good for his party, for him to stand again in the next election. A senior Tory said: “If he remains an MP, he is more in the spotlight – he will be more of a target. Why would he want that? The Covid investigation will continue for years with him at the center of it all.”
Interviewed on TalkTV on Friday, his close supporter, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, appeared to concede that Johnson’s hopes of a comeback were over. Dorries said that after a lengthy long-distance phone call with Johnson after the latest controversy, another pitch for the top job was “the last thing on my mind.”
He suggested there were too many forces against him, adding that the new investigation into the breach of Covid rules “stinks to high heaven”.
Even before it begins, the Hallett-led Covid inquiry has become another major obstacle to Johnson’s return to power.
