David Cameron heckled as he admits ‘mistakes’ at Covid inquiry

David Cameron was heckled after giving evidence at the Covid inquiry today, when he admitted ministers had ‘failed’ to prepare for the pandemic.

Angry bystanders shouted ‘shame on you’ and asked if the former prime minister had ‘damaged the reputation of the Tory party’ as he left the central London hearing after a two-hour grilling.

Mr Cameron was quickly ushered into a waiting car before being driven away.

He concluded his evidence by saying he was ‘desperately sorry about the loss of life’ in the UK during the pandemic.

The former Conservative party leader conceded too much time was spent preparing for a wave of flu – and said it was a ‘mistake’ not to consider the impact of a wider range of pandemics.  

Mr Cameron, who led the nation from 2010 to 2016, defended the eye-watering austerity cuts on his watch – which have been blamed a depleted NHS leading to tens of thousands of extra deaths.

But giving evidence under oath as the first politician to be questioned by the inquiry, he said time spent focusing on flu during contingency planning was ‘the thing I keep coming back to’ when assessing the ‘horrors of the Covid pandemic’.

‘I think it was a mistake not to look more at the range of different types of pandemic,’ he told the inquiry.

‘Much more time was spent on pandemic flu and the dangers of pandemic flu, rather than on other, more respiratory diseases, like Covid turned out to be.’

Mr Cameron was then questioned on why he didn’t heed his own warning in 2015 that the Ebola outbreak was a ‘wake-up call’ to the emergence of a ‘more aggressive and difficult to contain’ virus.

He said his government did consider the spread of other illnesses, such as Sars and Mers.

‘I think that wasn’t a failing, I think the failing for not to ask more questions about asymptomatic transmission, highly infectious… what turned out to be the pandemic we had,’ he continued.

Despite criticism over austerity measures, he insisted there had not been too little economic planning for the pandemic.

‘The furlough scheme came in very quickly, very boldly and made an enormous difference, and that was possible because we had the financial capacity to do it,’ he said.

Having the ‘spare capacity to suddenly borrow’ a significant portion of national income was ‘very much in my mind when we drew up the plan to reduce the budget deficit’, he said.

Mr Cameron’s former chancellor, George Osbourne – who is due to give evidence next Tuesday – said in a statement that the approach taken following the 2008 financial crisis ‘had a material and positive effect on the UK’s ability to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic’.

Concluding his evidence, he said: ‘I’ve tried to be as frank as I can and as open as I can about the things my government did that helped… but I’ve also tried to be frank about the things that were missed.’

Mr Osbourne will be joined on Tuesday by former Cabinet office minister, Oliver Letwin.

Current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Deputy PM Oliver Dowden are due to appear on Wednesday at the long-awaited inquiry, which is expected to conclude in four years.  

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