Contrite, shorn of theatrics - Johnson's first day at inquiry

Boris Johnson's evidence was, for the most part, shorn of his usual performative theatrics.

Sitting on the press bench in the hearing room, the contempt in which Mr Johnson was held by many of the families of the bereaved sitting metres away was obvious; sniggers of derision from some of them punctuated his early testimony.

The thrust of Mr Johnson's case - contrition, with hindsight, at his tardiness in clocking the imminent scale of the pandemic in early 2020 - was mixed with his best effort to take on the cavalry of his former colleagues who have questioned his competence and the culture of his Downing Street operation.

Crude WhatsApp exchanges were framed as entirely typical of the style of many on the messaging service; indulging in the "ephemeral, pejorative, hyperbolical" as he put it.

Private, internal anger at his failings was a good thing, he claimed, a "disputatious culture" better than a "quietly acquiescent" one.

Two sentence siblings appeared frequently: "I can't remember" and "I don't know."

Claims to this end may be judged individually plausible.

But their volume stood out.

More on Covid and the Covid Inquiry

• What is the UK Covid inquiry and how does it work?

• How inquiry is exposing deep flaws in Covid decision-making

• 'Moronic': Vicious Covid WhatsApps reveal No 10 battles

• What to do if you have Covid: Can you go to work or school?

The UK's governance structures - the wiring of where power lies and who takes decisions - also featured, and there was a parallel here with what the former health secretary Matt Hancock said last week.

Mr Johnson felt devolution didn't work during the pandemic because mixed messages were sent, depending on where you were in the UK, because devolved governments did different things, at different times, from the government at Westminster.

He suggested the Public Health Act 1984 had a consequence unforeseen at the time of its passing nearly 40 years ago, because the devolution that was to follow meant lots of pandemic powers rested away from Westminster.

What should now happen, he argued, was that this act should be amended to discount pandemics from it.

Some will see this as a self-serving argument for a former prime minister to make, perhaps keen on hoarding power at the centre. Others will insist at a time of emergency clarity is key and it was absent during Covid.

In big picture terms, Mr Johnson sought to remind the inquiry of his central role as a pandemic prime minister; judging trade offs of a colossal nature; confronting a scenario without modern precedent.

The question not asked explicitly but hanging over the inquiry is this: would the UK have coped better had there been a different prime minister?

Mr Johnson will fear evidence is already accumulating to suggest the answer to that is yes.

We have now seen and heard his first stab at trying to take on that hunch.

He is back on Thursday morning to face more questions.