What to watch as Boris Johnson appears at the Covid inquiry 

Welcome to Wednesday’s Early Edition from i.

If Boris Johnson had a lot of questions to answer before the Covid inquiry began, he now has at least 20 times more. The bigger ones – whether he was decisive enough in the early days of the pandemic, whether his handling of it meant people died needlessly – have not changed. But among them are now other serious details and accusations that need to be unpicked. Why was he not given any information during the half-term break in February 2020, including from two Cobra meetings? Did he think Covid was just “nature’s way of dealing with old people?” Did he really say “let the bodies pile high”? Did he delay making decisions and possess the wrong skillset for dealing with the crisis? Was he responsible for allowing a “macho” and sexist culture full of “wild animals” to flourish inside No.10? Did he really want to ask scientists whether the virus could be destroyed by blowing a special hairdryer up people’s noses? And what really happened to his WhatsApp messages? Previously, Mr Johnson has admitted mistakes were made, but said his ministers were having to working fast, under pressure, in the face of a huge crisis. Today, from 10am, many of these accusations will be put before Mr Johnson, as he begins two days of hearings at Lady Hallett’s inquiry in Paddington. What can we expect? We’ll take a look, after the headlines.

 Today’s news, and why it matters

 The Conservatives are unlikely to get a boost in the opinion polls from the Government’s migration crackdown, pollsters have warned. Rishi Sunak’s new rules designed to cut net migration by 300,000 a year have been welcomed by Tory MPs but criticised by business and health leaders.

“Red Wall” Tory voters don’t believe Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda asylum policy can succeed and disagree with its core principle of no return to the UK, according to focus group research i has been given access to. The views come from a cross section of voters in Walsall in the West Midlands who all backed the Conservatives at the 2019 general election and voted leave in the EU referendum.

A toxic water spill discharging human waste into a London river has still not been fixed more than two years after it was first reported, i can reveal. The local campaigner who reported the incident said Thames Water has “got away” with discharging sewage through an unlicensed pipe for years, due to inaction by the watchdog.

A woman who was injured and saw her own dog mauled to death in an XL Bully dog attack says a loophole allowing the “evil” breed to be taken to Northern Ireland after they’re banned in England will result in more attacks. Student nurse Sarah Mckerr was dragged to the floor and bitten on the hand by two XL Bullies while attempting to protect her Shih Tzu called Bruno in Lurgan, County Armagh, in September.

The Government has laid out plans to cut the number of skilled overseas workers – despite growing shortages in a number of industries. These are the jobs blocked off to migrants under £38,700 salary entry requirement.

The winner of the 2023 Turner Prize Jesse Darling has blamed former prime minister Margaret Thatcher for working-class people not embracing art. Speaking at the ceremony the Oxford-born artist, 41, said: “When I was a kid Margaret Thatcher took art out of our schools because she thought it wasn’t economically productive yet. Subsequently, some of the leading NHS surgeons started complaining that people weren’t showing up with the right fine motor skills.”

Three things to watch as Boris Johnson appears at the Covid inquiry:

What questions do families want him to answer? Figures show 233,225 people in Britain have died so far from Covid. The families of just ten of those have told i which questions they want the former PM to face. Lorelei King, who lost her husband Vince in March 2020, wants the PM to answer this: “Why were we so late to lockdown in March 2020? Experts have suggested this decision cost tens of thousands of lives?” Naomi Fulop, who lost her mother Christina, in January 2021, asks: “Why did he repeat so many of the mistakes made in the first wave, leading to an even higher death toll in the second wave?” The inquiry has previously heard about the sequence of events leading up to the November 2020 lockdown, when scientists advised Mr Johnson to bring in a “circuit breaker” as soon as September. As Jane Merrick reports, when the Alpha variant emerged in the December, the rise in cases and patients piled even more pressure on to an overwhelmed health service, and the death toll from Covid in January 2021 was even higher than the first peak. Read all of the questions from victims’ families here.

The accusations – and the mystery of the missing WhatsApp messages: The former PM faces a long list of questions and accusations, many of which have surfaced during previous hearings at the inquiry. Key among them will be his decisions over when to implement lockdowns, and whether he accepts his administration acted too late from the beginning. But there will be finer details too. One of those is the culture within Downing St, which former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara described as “toxic”. She told the inquiry that female experts were ignored, and women were “looked over”, and accused Mr Johnson of failing to tackle “misogynistic language” used by Dominic Cummings. She also claimed people were “laughing at the Italians” during meetings over Covid restrictions. Did he allow this culture to flourish? Ms MacNamara isn’t the only one to lay bold claims about how Downing St was run. In messages between former Cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill and his successor Simon Case they describe No10 as being populated by “wild animals”. There’s also the questions over Partygate, how and why that was allowed to happen and whether he now regrets it. There is also the suggestion that Mr Johnson was preoccupied during the pandemic by a book he had been commissioned to write about Shakespeare. Read the full list of key questions and flash points here. The case of his missing WhatsApp messages may crop up, after it was revealed again that he has not been able to provide the inquiry with any communications from February to early June 2020. According to the Times, Mr Johnson has told the inquiry: “The technical team has been unable to determine the cause of this”. Labour frontbencher Nick Thomas-Symonds said it was “typical and will be deeply disappointing to families who have lost loved ones and deserve nothing less than full disclosure”.

How will Boris Johnson respond? As i previously reported, the former PM will argue that chaos in Government at the time of the pandemic was due to constantly changing scientific advice. He is also likely to point out that Government scientists including Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Chris Whitty were also initially unclear about how to respond to the growth of the virus. An ally of Mr Johnson said: “The sense that some people have got that ministers were just ignoring the advice and were too slow is strongly contradicted by what the scientists were saying up to mid-March. There are lots of examples where the scientific advice changed a lot.” Read that story, here. He is also expected to insist that he followed the advice of scientists and did not lock down the country more quickly because herd immunity was initially favoured, the Telegraph reported. The Times says he is also expected to caution it against placing too much weight on WhatsApp messages, saying “we have all” made “ill-judged, hasty and unguarded comment to our closest confidantes” and said things privately that were now a cause for regret. There will be issues Mr Johnson wants to highlight too – such as the speed of the vaccine rollout. Some reports suggest he wants the inquiry to urgently look at the harms caused by Covid lockdowns. And, as Richard Vaughan notes, his performance could be crucial if he is to maintain any ambitions for a political comeback. 

 Around the world

 On 7 October, Hamas attacked southern Israel, storming communities, army bases and a music festival and massacring 1,200 people. Less frequently heard are the horrific allegations of brutal sexual violence against women from that day. i has spoken to witnesses, investigators and organisations working to help survivors.

Israeli military sources have reportedly put forward proposals to eliminate Hamas by expelling the group from Gaza or flooding its network of tunnels. The logistics of the plan are said to be challenging, with the volume of water required for such as task unclear. Flooding the tunnels could also risk the lives of more than 100 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden has said he might have passed on the chance of a second term in the White House if Donald Trump was not in the race to return to office. Speaking to a Democrat fundraising event in Weston, Massachusetts, Mr Biden said: “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called off a high-profile briefing with US politicians at the last moment, amid an impasse over future US funding. Senate leader Chuck Schumer did not explain why Mr Zelensky was a no-show.

Argentina and Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi has been named Time magazine’s Athlete of the Year. “Lionel Messi this year managed to do what once seemed impossible, when he signed with Inter Miami: turning the US into a soccer country,” read Time.

Parcels and letters will be distributed by electric aircraft between regions of New Zealand as the country attempts to decarbonise its aviation industry. Air New Zealand has purchased a battery-powered, all-electric five seater cargo aircraft, which will be put to use running mail between airports with the nation’s postal service from 2026.

 Watch out for…

 Rishi Sunak, who will face tough questions at PMQs today over his Rwanda legislation, which is already dividing MPs. 

 Thoughts for the day

 Rishi Sunak’s migration ‘crackdown’ shows Suella Braverman’s ghost lives on. Moderate Tories fear the policies are anti-family and un-Conservative, writes Paul Waugh.

Everything you know about ‘love languages’ is wrong. The concept of five love languages is steeped in deeply misogynistic and exclusionary beliefs, explains Kate Lister.

Pity the royals in their comical mission to appear progressive. Now they steal the appearance of goodness, says Tanya Gold.

Culture Break

 Fairytale of New York was the last great British Christmas song. Why? Festive bangers like The Pogues’ 1987 classic still rule the yuletide airwaves decades after their release, yet few modern-day hits have left their mark, writes Ed Power.

The Big Read

 Britain’s children aren’t learning to swim – this is why. One in four children leaving primary school cannot swim 25m, and with thousands of pools closing the crisis is worsening, writes Michelle Perry.

Sport

 The Premier League is giving up on match-going fans – the TV deal proves it. More than 70 per cent of Premier League games are moving outside the 3pm blackout, which continues to ostracise existing, largely working-class supporters, writes Daniel Storey.

Something to brighten your day

 Rome’s ancient Domus Tiberiana palace reopens after a half-century of neglect. The palace was adapted and embellished by emperors Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Domitian and Hadrian, but was abandoned by the 10th century, writes Abigail Blasi.