Rishi has to take down Boris at the Covid inquiry – and run the risk of Tory civil war

The public needs the PM to let loose about exactly how much of a disaster his two predecessors were, writes Andrew Grice. For Sunak, this could be a ‘do or die’ moment...

While Johnson’s political career is now dead, Sunak’s is still alive (PA Archive)

On the eve of this week’s explosive Covid inquiry hearings, one Boris Johnson ally told me they were convinced he could yet make a sensational comeback as Conservative Party leader. While admitting Johnson’s aversion to hard graft, they predicted he would become leader of the opposition after a Tory defeat at next year’s general election.

Today, Johnson’s dwindling band of acolytes are no longer predicting his return. It was bad enough that the inquiry painted a picture of a dysfunctional Downing Street under a man who most people called “the trolley” for veering all over the place (copyright Dominic Cummings).

Then there were the claims that Johnson went missing to write his book on Shakespeare as the virus began to spread and that the first lockdown was delayed by 10 days. But the most damaging revelation to Johnson was still to come. Even members of Johnson’s fan club now admit privately the final nail in his political coffin was the revelation that he believed old people should be allowed to die from Covid to spare younger people and the economy.

Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, recorded in his diary that Johnson “is obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going … PM says ‘a lot of my backbenchers think that & I must say I agree with them.’”

Even Johnson cannot bounce back from that. “It’s over,” one admirer admitted. Tory MPs and party members – more than half of whom are over 60 – would never elect him again. The only group of people among whom the Tories are ahead in the opinion polls, the over-65s, will not forget his words.

This week showed the Covid inquiry will damage the Tories’ election prospects even if its final report comes after polling day – as Johnson intended when he delayed setting it up, thinking he would lead his party into the next election. The inquiry could publish interim findings before an autumn 2024 contest. In any case, the evidence itself is now damning enough.

The investigation is serving up a constant reminder of the Tories’ incompetence. That matters more than the psychodrama of who hates who and who swears the most. Although there were clearly failings in Whitehall, it won’t wash to blame the civil service machine, as some Tories want to do. A fish rots from the head down, and the government was rotten because of the person at its head.

Having covered nine prime ministers, I can’t imagine any of them being less well suited to handling a crisis like Covid than Johnson – and yes, that includes Liz Truss. Under Johnson, the PM’s indecision was final, when the country was crying out for strong leadership, even if mistakes were bound to be made, due partly to the woeful lack of a plan for a pandemic.

Unfortunately for Rishi Sunak, he cannot escape the inquiry’s dark cloud. It makes it much harder for him to be the "agent of change" he wants to be because he was there during the pandemic. As chancellor, he didn’t even consult scientists over his “Eat out to help out” scheme and now we know why: the inquiry heard that Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, dubbed it “Eat out to help out the virus”.

The only way Sunak can limit the damage is to denounce his troublesome predecessor when he gives evidence to the inquiry in a few weeks. Voters would at least see the contrast between the two PMs because Johnson will be questioned at around the same time.

However, senior Tories doubt Sunak will wield the knife; so far, he has pulled his punches about the failings of both Johnson and Truss out of fear of provoking a Tory civil war. He had the platform to disown them at last month’s Tory conference but took the soft option of attacking a 30-year consensus and suggesting he would end it – weak and waffly, and no wonder the public didn’t buy the idea that Sunak is a changemaker.

Sunak’s fears of disunity are understandable, but there will be an outbreak of that next year anyway if the polls don’t move. The Johnson and Truss camps might be noisy and can generate headlines, but they are not as strong as they claim. Sunak doesn’t have to exaggerate, merely to tell the truth, which comes naturally to him if not to Johnson.

With Labour inevitably making it a “time for change” election after 14 years of Tory rule, Sunak’s only hope is to persuade voters he has restored competent government, and the economy is (just about) improving, so he can warn them not to gamble on an unproven Labour Party.

So the public needs to hear him say how disastrous his two predecessors were, starting with Johnson at the Covid inquiry. While Johnson’s political career is now dead, Sunak’s is still alive. But his appearance at the inquiry is a “do or die” moment for him.