The covid-19 inquiry exposes chaos in Boris Johnson’s government

IT WAS EASY to get distracted by the foul language. Did Dominic Cummings regret calling ministers “useless fuckpigs”, “morons” and “cunts” in WhatsApp messages, or describing the Cabinet Office as “terrifyingly shit”? Giving evidence to the covid-19 inquiry on October 31st, to Boris Johnson was characteristically caustic. If anything he had “understated” the scale of the dysfunction within the government as it grappled with covid.Many countries have completed short, sharp exercises to draw lessons from the pandemic. Britain’s sprawling inquest will try to dissect the functioning of almost every part of the state. Witnesses will be questioned until at least 2026. Lawyers will pore over a vast trove of documents and try somehow to pin down a narrative.