Evidence heard at the Covid inquiry yesterday hints at the pressure from the party on the PM.

“Vallance’s diary also recounts how then chief whip Mark Spencer told a cabinet meeting in December 2020 that “we should let the old people get it and protect others”. He said that Johnson then added: “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them”.”

Then we have this evidence of Simon’s priorities, see: MP Simon Jupp goes full ostrich in the face of the Omicron wave when he was on record as tweeting ‘I don’t support Plan B. … I won’t vote for these measures.’

And we all know of his lobbying in support of the hospitality sector in general and support for “Dr Death’s” “eat out to help out”. – Owl

Boris Johnson favoured ‘older people accepting their fate’, Covid inquiry hears

Pippa Crerar www.theguardian.com (Extract0

Boris Johnson told senior advisers that the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and he was “no longer buying” the fact the NHS was overwhelmed during the pandemic, the pandemic inquiry has heard.

In a WhatsApp message sent to his top aides in October 2020, the former prime minister said he had been “slightly rocked” by Covid infection rates and suggested he was, as a result, unconvinced that hospitals were on the brink despite public warnings from NHS chiefs and frontline staff.

The former chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, in his diaries described a “bonkers set of exchanges” in a meeting from that August. He noted that Johnson appeared “obsessed with older people accepting their fate” and letting younger people get on with their lives during the pandemic.

Another note from Vallance, after a meeting in December 2020, hinted at the power wielded by the right of the Conservative party during the pandemic: “PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not).

“He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’”

Vallance’s diary also recounts how then chief whip Mark Spencer told a cabinet meeting in December 2020 that “we should let the old people get it and protect others”. He said that Johnson then added: “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them”.

Johnson, despite Covid infection numbers going up at that time, told the meeting that he wanted to move to tier 3 restrictions instead.

The documents emerged during a bruising session of the Covid inquiry for the former prime minister, with the former senior aides Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings questioning in evidence his suitability for the role during the pandemic.

Cummings had previously, in July 2021, claimed that Johnson was not prepared to impose lockdown restrictions to stop the spread of Covid in autumn 2020 because “the people who are dying are essentially all over 80”…..