Boris Johnson took a four-day break from official government business in February 2020, when the NHS was warning it could be “overwhelmed” by Covid-19, newly released files show. The former prime minister spent the time walking his dog, riding a motorbike and hosting guests at Chevening, a government estate in Kent, during what the Covid inquiry later described as a “lost month” in the UK’s pandemic response.
Official activity logs, obtained by the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets and seen by the Guardian, indicate Johnson conducted no government business on 15, 16, 17 and 21 February. Instead, he walked his jack russell Dilyn, rode a motorbike given to him by his wife Carrie, and entertained friends and family with lunches, dinners and overnight stays. On 21 February, as Johnson enjoyed his break, the government was briefed on a cluster of 16 Covid cases in northern Italy, with officials warned that the virus might no longer be containable. The same day, NHS England noted that even with mitigation, it could become “overwhelmed” unless “significant interventions” were made, but lockdown measures were not introduced for over four weeks.
The Covid inquiry, chaired by retired judge Heather Hallett, concluded that the UK’s response was “too little, too late” and that a lockdown a week earlier on 16 March could have saved more than 20,000 lives. It described February 2020 as a “lost month” and said Johnson should have realised sooner that the pandemic required prime ministerial leadership. The report found no cabinet meetings between 14 and 25 February, and that Johnson was not briefed “to any significant extent” on the virus during that period.
Johnson told the inquiry in December 2023 that he had not taken a long holiday and was working throughout, but the logs appear to contradict his testimony. They show he carried out only two full days of work during his Chevening stay, on 19 and 20 February, including a 20-minute call with US President Donald Trump and a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. On 21 February, he enjoyed a four-hour dinner with a friend of his wife’s, rather than joining calls about the escalating situation in Europe. The inquiry’s report highlighted a “toxic and chaotic” culture in Downing Street under Johnson, and said the response effectively halted during the half-term holidays.
