Opposition calls for official inquiry into Johnson govt’s coronavirus response

The leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey, a long-time detractor of Boris Johnson, has called for an official inquiry to be launched into the prime minister’s handling of the coronavirus response.

“Once we are through this crisis, there will of course need to be an independent inquiry to officially review the government’s response to the pandemic, so we can learn the lessons,” Liberal Democrats acting leader Ed Davey said.

In Davey’s estimation, the inquiry must be granted “the strongest possible powers” given the Tory government’s “shocking failures on protective equipment for staff and the slow response of government.”

The UK currently has 130,184 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection with a death toll that has risen to over 17,300. The country’s National Healthcare Service, which had been gutted for years prior to the current pandemic, was woefully underprepared to handle the onslaught of ICU patients, among them Boris Johnson himself. At least 100 frontline health workers have died from Covid-19, according to the most recent figures.

Davey’s criticisms echo those of newly-minted opposition and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, who also criticized the lackadaisical response by Downing Street to the crisis, suggesting that at some point in the future once the dust of the coronavirus crisis has settled, the UK will be forced to look back at what went wrong.

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