While the hearing is taking a brief break, now is a good time to bring you a key moment from Boris Johnson's evidence so far.

He began with an apology, saying: "Can I say that I understand the feelings of the victims and their families, and I am deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and the suffering of those victims and their families."

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from the inquiry

Hello from the inquiry hearing room. Phones are banned in here when we are listening to the questioning.

But there’s a short break so I can tap away for a few minutes.

Within moments of it starting this morning, something I’ve not seen before: people being asked to leave.

Some of the bereaved families stood up, each holding up a piece of A4 paper with a single word on.

It read, in total, "the dead can’t hear your apologies." Shortly afterwards, having refused to sit down, they were led out.

Later, as the questioning continued, there were frequent sniggers of derision from those remaining.

As the inquiry paused for a break, another shouted "you’re a murderer" as Johnson left the room.

Next up, we are shown some extracts from the diary of former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance describing meetings with the former PM in October 2020.

The last line reads: "This all feels like a complete lack of leadership."

Keith puts it to Johnson that it is "extraordinary" for the government's chief scientific adviser, alongside cabinet secretaries and other advisers to be commenting negatively in this way about the PM.

"This is wholly to be expected," replies Johnson. He says that this was a period of virus "resurgence", so when Vallance talks about "inconsistency", this is about Johnson understanding that measures needed to be changed.

"Of course we were changing but so did the collective understanding of the science," he adds, in reference to advice on masks, asymptomatic transmission and ventilators.

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

A key line of Boris Johnson’s defence against charges of a toxic culture in Downing Street is becoming clear.

He is arguing, essentially, that things have always been this way in government - but that the existence of WhatsApp means that for the first time there is documentary evidence.

When asked about the language of messages between people working in No 10, Johnson responded that “any powerful and effective government has - and I think of the Thatcher government or the Blair government - a lot of challenging and competing characters whose views about each other might not be fit to print, but who got an awful lot done.”

He returned to the Thatcher government to make a similar point - about 15 minutes later - when asked about criticisms expressed in WhatsApps by senior civil servants about Matt Hancock’s performance.

“WhatsApp conversation is intended to be, though clearly it isn’t, ephemeral. It tends to the pejorative and the hyperbolical," he says.

While the hearing has returned to the topic of WhatsApps, let's return to a moment a little earlier when the former PM's own messages were under the spotlight.

Hugo Keith put it to Boris Johnson that 5,000 messages were missing.

Johnson claimed he had given the Covid inquiry "everything that I think you need" in relation to messages on his mobile phone.

He also denied making a “factory reset" on the phone.

Jim Reed
Reporting from the inquiry

The performance of the former health secretary, Matt Hancock, has been a running theme of this inquiry.

It is clear from WhatsApp messages that Dominic Cummings called for Hancock to be sacked - or binned - on a regularly basis.

The former cabinet secretary, Lord Sedwill, also said in his evidence that he left Johnson under "no illusions" that Hancock should be replaced.

Johnson was just shown a further series of WhatsApp messages from Cummings saying, in no uncertain terms, that Hancock was "unfit for the job".

Johnson said that - as prime minister - he was constantly being "lobbied by somebody to sack somebody else".

He said he thought Hancock worked "very hard" and although he "may have had "defects" he was "doing his best in hard circumstances" and was a "good communicator".

On the screen the inquiry is shown WhatsApps between Johnson and Cummings in May 2020, "Hancock is unfit for the job," is one of the messages.

Keith says to Johnson it cannot be suggested he was unaware of Cummings' opinions of the health secretary at the time, Matt Hancock, and the grave concerns being expressed.

Johnson tells the inquiry he disagreed with Cummings' view of Hancock and "stuck by" the health secretary.

Johnson is now being asked about the so-called "toxic" culture in No 10 that previous witnesses to the inquiry have discussed.

Asked if he knew people were refusing to work for him because of this atmosphere, he says he "didn't see any sign of that" but adds "the gender balance of my team should have been better".

"When I was running London it was great and it was 50/50 and it was a very harmonious team," he says, reflecting on his time as mayor.

But, sometimes during the pandemic, "too many meetings were too male dominated".

Keith says the inquiry has no interest in the "salaciousness" of Dominic Cummings' linguistic style or WhatsApp messages, but adds they do reveal what people in No 10 thought about each other.

As you may remember, Cummings was Johnson's chief adviser at the height of the pandemic before the pair fell out and he was sacked in late 2020.

"It is fair to say, that material paints an appalling picture not all the time but at times of incompetence and disarray," Keith says.

Johnson says "a lot of the language used" and style is "completely unknown" to him, but he says he has apologised to one person who suffered abuse in the WhatsApps.

He makes a distinction between language and decision-making, claiming that any government - citing Margaret Thatcher's and Tony Blair's - has a lot of "challenging characters whose views might not be fit to print".

A brief warning about the live stream from the inquiry - you may hear very strong language from time to time as evidence is read out.

We have no control over this and there is no warning before this happens during live proceedings. We'll take care to warn you in our text coverage before including any strong language.

While the BBC would not normally broadcast such strong language, we believe there is a clear public interest in reporting the inquiry's proceedings in full.

After discussing Johnson's interactions with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), Keith asks whether there should have been another version of this group to deal with societal and economic considerations.

Johnson says there is such a body. "It's called HM Treasury. That is what they do."

He adds that for all the "difficulties" of the department - which is the government's economic and finance ministry - it did "work well" in allowing him to "get a balance of the argument".

UK's excess deaths worst in Western Europe - bar Italypublished at 10:51 Greenwich Mean Time 6 December 2023

10:51 GMT 6 December 2023

Nick Triggle
Health correspondent

Before the inquiry chair interjected again about disruption to the hearing, Johnson and Keith clashed over excess deaths – that is the number of people dying above what would be normally expected.

That is a key measure when comparing how countries fared during the pandemic, as it is not influenced by how much testing is done to identify Covid deaths - and it also takes into account indirect deaths from factors such as struggling to access healthcare for other reasons.

As Keith pointed out, the UK had a higher level of excess deaths than other Western European countries bar Italy when you look at the period 2020 to 2023.

A big factor in that is what happened in that first year – which this module of the UK Covid inquiry is heavily focused on.

In 2021, the UK fared better with the quick rollout of the vaccination campaign undoubtedly a factor in that.

But when you widen the analysis out, what is more marked is how other parts of the globe – eastern Europe and the US in particular – did much worse. And others did much better.

Image source, .

Baroness Hallett has interjected for a second time in today's hearing to warn those in the room that anyone disrupting the session will be removed.

Four people were taken out of the room after Boris Johnson began his evidence with an apology for the "suffering" during the pandemic.

You can watch the moment of Hallett's first warning below:

Reflecting on decisions around locking down the country, Johnson says there were "strong arguments" against going "too early".

As a reminder, he ordered the first mandatory lockdown on 23 March 2020 across the UK with England put into a second four-week lockdown on 5 November 2020.

The former PM says there was the risk of behavioural fatigue, that is, the public tiring of restrictions and compliance falling. And also the danger that locking down too fast would just mean the virus would simply "bounce back" again later in the year.

Both those arguments were "made powerfully and they certainly had a big effect on me", he adds.

Hints of pushback suggest sparky exchanges aheadpublished at 10:38 Greenwich Mean Time 6 December 2023

10:38 GMT 6 December 2023

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Boris Johnson’s evidence began with an apology for “the pain, the loss and the suffering” of many during Covid. His written statement also declares: “We - I - unquestionably made mistakes.”

But it is already clear that the former prime minister is determined to use this hearing to defend how he and his government handled the pandemic.

Asked by Hugo Keith KC to outline which mistakes he was apologising for, Johnson said that the fact devolved governments occasionally diverged in their public messaging from the UK government was problematic.

And asked whether he thought any of his mistakes were avoidable, Johnson stressed that “with hindsight it may be easy to see things that we could have done differently”.

These exchanges suggest that Johnson intends to push back against the criticism he has received from other witnesses. That means we are likely to hear some sparky exchanges over the next two days.

Keith next asks Johnson about whether he believes government decision-making led "materially" to excess deaths in the UK.

The pair go back and forth on whether the UK was the second-worst country for excess deaths in Western Europe.

"I think the UK from the evidence I've seen was well down the European table and even further down the world table," Johnson says, adding that an "extremely elderly population", a high rate of "Covid-related morbidities" and high population density also influenced the death rate.

Keith asks again whether government actions materially affected the outcome.

"The answer is I don't know," Johnson replies.

Image source, PA Media

Back inside the inquiry, Johnson is asked by lawyer Hugo Keith what the main mistakes of the government's response to the pandemic were.

Johnson says he would struggle to list them in a hierarchy, but insists he and his government did their "level best".

He admits mistakes were made, saying "there were unquestionably things we should have done differently".

He says he takes "personal responsibility for all decisions made".

Ellie Price
Reporting from outside the inquiry

As Boris Johnson apologises inside the inquiry for the "pain and the loss and the suffering" that victims of Covid and their families went through during the pandemic, protesters outside, including bereaved families, have a direct message.

They are carrying signs reading: "The dead can't hear your apologies."

Returning to his apology, Keith next asks Johnson what he is referring to in his witness statement when he says there are mistakes which he is sorry for.

Johnson says there were problems with messaging.

He says the government was "relying so much" on messaging to help contain the Covid-19 virus and the public needed to understand these messages "in as straight forward a way as possible".

But that, because of the "natural and proper right" of the devolved administrations to have their own approaches, he says BBC News would sometimes have one message from No 10 and a slightly different one from Scotland.

We "need to sort that out in future", he adds.

Hugo Keith KC, the lawyer for the inquiry, begins by outlining Johnson's political career and the remit of the inquiry before moving on the issue of missing WhatsApp messages.

The inquiry has requested the messages as part of its investigations but the Times reported, external today that Johnson had not managed to access WhatsApps on an old phone, which he used before May 2021.

Keith says there are 5,000 WhatsApps missing.

Johnson accepts this, explains he couldn't get access to an old phone which was then "activated by some technical people".

"I haven't removed WhatsApps from my phone," Johnson says. "I want to make that clear. I have given everything you need."

Keith replies: "I ask because this has been trailed in the press and wanted to give an opportunity to respond."