Pro-death squad

JOHNSON'S DAMNING VERDICT ON RISHI'S TREASURY DURING COVID...

- DAVE BURKE

Political Correspondent BORIS Johnson called the Treasury under Rishi Sunak a "death squad" a few months after the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, the Covid Inquiry heard yesterday.

The then Prime Minister used the phrase in a meeting in early 2021 as he planned to wind down lockdown rules, according to the diary of the then Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. Counsel to the Inquiry Dermot Keating told the hearing: "He ends up by saying the team must bring in the pro-death squad from HMT [Her Majesty's Treasury]".

It followed Mr Sunak's controversial Eat Out to Help Out subsidised dining scheme in the August of 2020.