Why the state opening of Parliament this year will feel like a charade - Andrew Vine

The Prime Minister who presided over the chaotic response to the pandemic, Boris Johnson, may be long gone from office, but the inquiry means his shadow has fallen anew across Rishi Sunak.

Every day of damning evidence, each new revelation of despicably shameful behaviour at the heart of Government, makes it less likely that Mr Sunak will remain in Downing Street after the next election.

There are no words that the King can speak on behalf of Mr Sunak and his Government that will shift from the public’s mind the image of a Conservative administration which failed the country.

Everybody knew the Covid inquiry was likely to unveil a story of failure, but even so what has come to light has been truly shocking.

Day after day, it has been utterly disgraceful. The vile language and misogyny of Dominic Cummings were bad enough, but the picture that emerges of his master is even worse.

There can be no comeback for a Government whose majority rests on the appeal of Boris Johnson in 2019 to voters like those in Yorkshire’s red wall seats.

Not now he has been characterised as, variously, a madman, expressing the opinion that older people should be allowed to die to save the economy, veering about like an out-of-control shopping trolley, and even asking his chief scientist and the country’s top medical officer for their opinion on a lunatic YouTube video purporting to show a nasal vacuum cleaner that could cure Covid.

If the Prime Minister and his colleagues hoped that enough time had elapsed between Mr Johnson resigning and an election to allow public memories to fade of just how unfit for office he was, that has been torpedoed by the inquiry.

And it can only get worse for the Government. Mr Johnson will face a forensic cross-examination when he gives evidence, as will Mr Sunak about his time as Chancellor.

Did he know how appalling things were at the heart of Government? Given that virtually every witness has testified to the fiasco in Downing Street, Mr Sunak is going to have his work cut out persuading the country that he wasn’t up to his neck in it.

Had the evidence so far showed that honest mistakes were made, Britain could have just about forgiven them.

Given the nature of the pandemic, its scale and the absence of a parallel in modern times from which to learn lessons, mistakes would have been understandable.

No government in the world can point to its handling of Covid and claim it got everything right.

But what is unforgivable is the dithering, the chaos, the lies, evasions, carelessness and the failure to take the threat seriously.

Again and again during those desperate months, Boris Johnson asked the nation to believe that he and his Government were doing everything possible to save lives, protect the economy and prevent the NHS from collapsing.

We had no choice but to put our faith in him. How misplaced that trust was is only now becoming fully apparent, and it is Mr Johnson’s successor in office who will pay the price. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of the Civil Service, but nevertheless the poisonous atmosphere in Number 10 obviously undermined whatever professionalism there was – or ought to have been – at the heart of Government.

Common sense dictated that the Opposition should have been brought more closely into the decisions that were made.

The country needed a complete cessation of political hostilities and a national effort to deal with Covid that embraced all sides, including the devolved administrations.

Instead, we learn that a coterie of cronies and people who weren’t up to the job were the substitute for effective management of a national emergency.