There are many things I will happily pin on Boris Johnson. Brexit for one; a cheapening of public discourse for another. We are still living with the consequences of his time as prime minister.

This week, Boris’s second appearance at the long-running Covid inquiry raised inevitable questions about the extent to which he was personally responsible for governmental missteps during the key period of the pandemic.

At a personal level, he merrily shook hands with people in hospital just as the virus was taking off , then partied in Downing Street while grieving relatives were unable to attend the funerals of their loved ones. And while he may not have been the brains behind policy failures, he ultimately oversaw their implementation.

The inquiry’s focus at present is on the impact of the p

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