Covid U-turns in Boris Johnson’s government were like a ‘slow-moving car crash’ making the same mistake ‘over and over again’

A series of Covid U-turns made by Boris Johnson’s government were like a “slow-moving car crash” that saw it make the same mistake “over and over again”, his former director of communications has said.

Lee Cain, who served in Downing Street from July 2019 until the end of 2020, told The Independent’s In the Room podcast that “avoidable” mistakes in No 10 would drive the communications team “bonkers”.

“It was just a slow-moving car crash, and that did happen quite particularly at the start of Covid,” he said. “It happened quite a few times. Luckily, I think, even in politics, once people make the same mistake over and over again, they did start listening.”

Mr Johnson was forced to make a number of significant U-turns during the pandemic, with several key policy decisions scrapped.

He repeatedly ruled out a second national lockdown both in and outside of the House of Commons – claiming in mid-October that Sir Keir Starmer’s support for a short term shutdown of the country was “the height of absurdity”. The second lockdown began on 5 November.

The then PM also famously encouraged all parents to send their children to school on the first day of term in January 2021, only to announce he was closing every school in England again that evening.

The previous August, amid intense and growing pressure, the government was forced into a humiliating U-turn when it announced it was dumping plans to base A-level results on a controversial algorithm, with ministers publicly apologising for the distress the fiasco had caused pupils and parents.

Mr Cain said there had been a discussion within No 10 at the start of the pandemic, about keeping pubs and bars open – but asking people not to visit them. That particular idea, he said, he thought had come from Mr Johnson himself.

“I remember saying, as my sort of role as a sort of political Cassandra at the time, that perhaps this wasn’t the best of all worlds… And I remember saying ‘This won’t last 24 hours. We will not hold this position because people will simply ask, ‘If people shouldn’t go, which you’re suggesting, why don’t we close the pubs and clubs?’”

He predicted that, had the plan gone ahead, “we would U-turn because that’s what happened quite frequently at that point. So we’d U-turn very quickly. Boris would lament the whole thing and say, ‘Well, how did we get in this idea? I never thought of – I didn’t want to do this. How did we end up in this position?’”

The situation was “bonkers because it was so avoidable,” he said, “…it was just a slow-moving car crash, and that did happen, particularly at the start of Covid it happened quite a few times. Luckily, I think… even in politics, once people make the same mistake over and over again, they did start listening.”

Listen to the full episode of In The Room on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch on YouTube