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The public inquiry into the UK’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic got under way earlier this year. So far it has heard from politicians such as David Cameron and George Osborne, who oversaw pandemic preparations and laid the conditions for the health service going into the crisis. It has heard from some of the scientists who advised the government and from the health secretary in office when the pandemic broke, Matt Hancock.
But as the Guardian’s deputy political editor, Peter Walker, tells Michael Safi, some of the most explosive moments have come not from witnesses themselves but from the mountain of material – much of it in the form of WhatsApp conversations – that they have handed over. In it, we can see the dark humour, petty squabbling and outright chaos that was the daily reality of the government response.
This week, the hearings will resume after a short break with some of the most powerful former advisers in Downing Street called in to give evidence. Today, the former communications director Lee Cain will face questions; tomorrow it is the turn of the former chief strategist Dominic Cummings.
Photograph: UK Covid-19 Inquiry/PA
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