Two of Boris Johnson’s closest advisers ranted about the UK being “so f***ed” amid a failure to lock down in autumn 2020, WhatsApp messages shown to the Covid inquiry have revealed.
Lee Cain, Johnson’s then director of communications, complained that the government had failed to learn from its previous mistakes in a message sent to Ben Warner, a data expert brought into Number 10.
On 12 October, almost three weeks before the prime minister announced a second national lockdown in England, Cain wrote: “We are so f***ed…why are we not acting in London and urban areas now? Same errors as March.”
