06 December 2023 , 21:07
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The livestream of Boris Johnson’s evidence to the inquiry should have come with a health warning.
Watching it ensured your blood pressure rose to a surely dangerous level, and made it almost impossible not to smash whatever screen you were watching it on.
It was rendered pointless within minutes, when any sliver of hope that the infamous liar might have just this once told the truth disintegrated as he insisted: “Can I just say how glad I am to be at this inquiry.”
Pull the other one, mate, it’s got an eye test to Barnard Castle on it. If hiding in a fridge instead had been an option, he clearly would have done it. Johnson had spent the previous 10 days preparing (aka rehearsing) with his legal team and they’d obviously told him to appear contrite. He attempted this briefly before falling back into tetchy waffle, talking endlessly using grandiose vocabulary but saying nothing.
Protesters standing outside the Covid Inquiry at Dorland House in London (AP)He also affected outrage at the audacity of people asking him – HIM! - to explain himself. He will presumably soon be off for amnesia tests, as there was a remarkable amount he could not recall.
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At least the Wagatha Christie trial had an entertaining story about a phone plunging into the sea to explain missing messages. The best Johnson could muster was “something to do with it being reset”.
Screen grab from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry live stream of a an extract from Sir Patrick Valance's notebooks (PA)Any satisfaction you might have expected from seeing this con artist’s feet finally held to the fire was negated by the fact that none of it touched the sides.
He said he was sorry but talk is cheap. He didn’t act it, or prove it, or seem it. He’s never sorry. And more fool any of us who thought this time might be different.