Boris Johnson ‘actively encouraged’ a chaotic culture inside Number 10 while thousands of Brits were dying at the height of the Covid crisis, according to a damning new report.

The official UK Covid-19 Inquiry has found the first lockdown in March 2020 could have been avoided if not for a ‘failure to act promptly and effectively’.

And if the lockdown had been introduced a week earlier – when it was widely understood to be inevitable – 23,000 lives might have been saved in England alone, it adds.

While all four national governments are criticised for their lack of urgency, the inquiry’s report paints a particularly scathing picture of Johnson’s administration.

It says: ‘There was a toxic and chaotic culture at the centre of the UK government during the pandemic, with the Inquiry hearing

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