Covid: Johnson blamed Welsh rates on singing and obesity, inquiry hears

Ex-prime minister Boris Johnson blamed Wales' high Covid rates in the pandemic on "the singing and the obesity", according to the diary of his chief scientific adviser at the time.

An extract from Sir Patrick Vallance's diaries was shown as Mr Johnson gave evidence to the UK Covid-19 inquiry.

It included the line: "Wales very high - PM says 'it is the singing and the obesity... I never said that.'"

Mr Johnson was quizzed on a different part of the entry.

He was not asked about the alleged remark about Wales, which appeared in a diary extract dated 11 September 2020.

Plaid Cymru's Mabon ap Gwynfor said the reported comment was "utterly disrespectful".

During the hearing on Thursday, the former prime minister claimed it was not clear that Wales' short 'firebreak' lockdown, which began the following month, had worked.

The Welsh government issued a stay-at-home directive for two weeks in a bid to stop infections.

The former prime minister made the claim when being pressed at the Covid inquiry on whether he should have introduced a circuit breaker lockdown in England the month before.

Earlier in the inquiry Mr Johnson's former communications chief Lee Cain said Wales' firebreak was the "correct decision".

"The scientific advice was not clear," said Mr Johnson.

"Yes, there was a push for a circuit breaker, but that was not supported by the health secretary [Matt Hancock], as he has testified to you, and he was normally amongst the toughest in wanting to impose lockdowns."

"There were question marks about the circuit breaker and its efficacy, and indeed where the circuit breaker was tried, as you know in Wales, it's not clear that it actually worked."

Inquiry counsel Hugo Keith pointed out the lockdown occurred later.

"It wasn't of course imposed until late October," he said.

"Sure," Mr Johnson replied, "but what I'm saying is there were perhaps legitimate grounds for thinking that a circuit breaker was not a panacea, and I was keen to continue with a local or a regional strategy which continued to have scientific support for being reasonable."

Wales forced pub, restaurants, hotels and non-essential shops to shut for two weeks in autumn 2020.

At the time Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford said the "time-limited firebreak" would be a "short, sharp shock to turn back the clock, slow down the virus and buy us more time".

The Welsh lockdown would eventually be mirrored in England two weeks later.

Data from the time showed that case rates in Wales did fall after the short lockdown was imposed, although the number of infections quickly bounced back again when restrictions were released.

The Welsh government faced some criticism at the time for removing restrictions too quickly.

Dr Richard Stanton, a reader in virology at Cardiff University, said in 2020 that the "lockdown was projected to reset the level by about a month and it did that".

In the course of the the hearing, Mr Johnson told the Covid inquiry there were "excellent" relations with Mr Drakeford during the pandemic.

The former prime minister said there was "far more that united us than divided" the UK nations.

"I have excellent relations and did have excellent relations with Mark Drakeford," he said.

Boris Johnson put the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (CDL), Michael Gove, in charge of relations with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland governments.

Mr Johnson claimed Mr Drakeford had told Mr Gove that the "collaboration had been very good".

He made the comments under questioning from the counsel for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families Cymru group, Bethan Harris.

She told the former prime minister that, in his evidence, Mr Drakeford said there was a "vacuum in there wasn't the possibility of speaking directly to the prime minister sufficiently", and wanted "regular checkpoints" with the prime minister.

Mr Johnson said there was a "risk of pointless political friction and grandstanding" and he thought "the way to minimise divergence and tensions to take the temperature down and to have business-like and practical meetings between the CDL and the DAs".

In an S4C documentary broadcast in 2021 Mr Drakeford was seen criticising the prime minister after a meeting with him.

"Dear me, he really, really is awful," he said.

Mabon ap Gwynfor of Plaid Cymru said: "Johnson's comments are utterly disrespectful, and unbecoming of a leader that so many of us knew all along was unfit to lead. A disastrous prime minister at the most dangerous time."

The Welsh government declined to comment on Wednesday's Covid inquiry proceedings.