Covid inquiry live: Priti Patel admits policing of Sarah Everard vigil was ‘totally inappropriate’
Ex-home secretary says police generally struck right balance between protest and Covid restrictions
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Your support makes all the difference.Dame Priti Patel has admitted to the Covid inquiry that the policing of a vigil for murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard was “totally inappropriate”.
The former home secretary said she was “dismayed” by the policing of the vigil in early 2021. The Metropolitan Police have since apologised and paid damages to two of those who were arrested.
However, Dame Priti said she felt the police generally struck the right balance between enforcing coronavirus restrictions and upholding people’s right to protest – despite such matters feeling “uncomfortable” at the time.
Earlier today, former top police chief Martin Hewitt criticised localised Covid rules, the speed at which they changed, and the tier system of different regulations for different areas of the country.
He told the inquiry that localised tiers made it “incredibly difficult for even a perfectly law-abiding and committed citizen to understand precisely what that meant for them in their own personal circumstances”, while having different regulations “on opposite sides of the same road” made policing more difficult.
Jun Pang, the policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, is also giving evidence to the inquiry.
Cummings: Johnson preferred to be in his study over Cobra meetings
Cummings tells the inquiryJohnson “preferred to be in his study” over attending emergency Cobra meetings on Covid.
The then-prime minister “wasn’t enormously keen” on Cobra, his former chief adviser added.
Asked by inquiry lead counsel Hugo Keith KC whether Mr Johnson was averse to attending the meeting because of its physical location, Mr Cummings said: “It’s hard to say. I mean, he certainly preferred to be in his study and he didn’t like going to Cobra.”
Cummings: ‘Multiple reasons’ Cobra didn’t work well during pandemic
The evidence session has resumed and Mr Keith is now asking Cummings about the role of government Cobra meetings during the pandemic.
Cummings tells the inquiry the emergency committee did not work well during the crisis for “multiple reasons”.
He says one reason is that the data going into Cobra meeting is “strictly controlled” for national security concerns. Cummings adds the committee was used to dealing with “relatively small things” - like “floods” and “terror attacks” with just a few people involved - rather than national crises.
Daughter who lost her father to Covid-19 hopes and prays lessons are learned
Deborah Lewis the founder of bereaved Covid19 Families UK expressed her concerns live on Sky News, she says she is still unable to get closure from losing her father.
She said: “More should have been done sooner, maybe more of our relatives would have survived.
“The bereaved, we all know we cannot bring our loved ones back but what we can do is hope and pray that lessons are learned so people in the future don’t have to go through the devastation and heartache that we’ve been through
“We are still in tears, heartbroken, and unable to move on because of the government’s actions.”
Grieving daughter says she ‘feels like she’s been punched in the stomach’ after reading Johnson’s comments
Brenda Doherty, whose mother died aged 82 in March 2020 after contracting Covid-19 in hospital, said reading comments made by Boris Johnson about older people in the pandemic was like being “punched in the stomach”.
Speaking as part of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK campaign group, she accused the former prime minister of having had a “callous and brutal attitude”.
She said: “I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach after reading Boris Johnson’s messages this morning.
“They are psychotic.”
She added: “He clearly didn’t see people like my mum as human beings, and thousands others died unnecessarily after the same mistakes were repeated because of Johnson’s callous and brutal attitude.
“I’d do anything to spend another day with my mum, and now we know that we might have had years and years together if only the country had a more humane prime minister when the pandemic struck.”
Government made ‘huge blunder’ on Rashford meals campaign, inquiry hears
The Government made a “huge blunder” around the Marcus Rashford free school meals campaign, a former key adviser to Boris Johnson said, as he lamented the lack of diversity among policymakers.
The then-prime minister was told “hungry children” were not the place to start when considering restraint on public finances in the pandemic, former No 10 director of communications Lee Cain said.
Mr Cain said there had been a clear lack of diversity in the prime minister’s top team when it came to informing policy and decision-making.
In a written statement to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Mr Cain said: “I remember asking in the Cabinet Room of 20 people, how many people had received free school meals. Nobody had – resulting in a policy and political blind spot. This was a huge blunder.
“The PM (to some degree understandably) said we needed to draw a line in the sand on public spending commitments, but this was clearly not the place to draw that line – something the PM was told by his senior team.”
Giving evidence on Tuesday, Mr Cain said: “It’s quite clear that there were challenges of gender diversity, socio-economic diversity and ethnic minority diversity at the very top of the PM’s top team.”
Watch - Cummings said ‘pretty much everyone’ called Boris Johnson ‘the trolley’ during pandemic
Cummings: ‘Cabinet Office was a bomb site and dumpster fire’
Dominic Cummings described the Cabinet Office as a “bomb site” and a “dumpster fire” when he took up his role as adviser to Boris Johnson, in his evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Dominic Cummings said an “overall dysfunctional system” was in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Asked if there was any part of the Government machine in which he “did not find fault”, Mr Cummings replied: “In the summer of 2020 I spent a lot of time talking to special forces and I found that they were exceptional.”
After Mr Keith told him to focus on the structure in place that was dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Cummings said: “I would say, overall, it’s widespread failure but pockets of excellent people and pockets of excellent teams doing excellent work within an overall dysfunctional system.”
Cummings: ‘Pretty much everyone called Boris Johnson the trolley'
Dominic Cummings has said “pretty much everyone” called Boris Johnson the trolley during the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.
The ex-PM’s then chief of staff was asked at the Covid inquiry about how he, the cabinet secretary, his director of communications and others used the term “about his propensity to change direction”.
Mr Cummings replied: “Pretty much everyone called him the trolley.”
Cummings: Dysfunctional government had pockets of excellent people
Dominic Cummings said there were “pockets of excellent people and pockets of excellent teams doing excellent work” in government during the pandemic, Archie Mitchell reports.
But the former Downing Street chief of staff said these were embedded in “an overall dysfunctional system”.
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