Nowhere to hide - not even a fridge Johnson faces Covid inquiry

Even at the height of his popularity, Boris Johnson routinely avoided close E questioning - to the extent of once hiding in a fridge to dodge a TV inquisitor. 

- Peter Walker

The former UK prime minister is likely to be dreading next week's appearance at the Covid inquiry. And he probably should.

It is no exaggeration to say that events on Wednesday and Thursday at the inquiry's repurposed office building in Paddington, west London, could help define the post-power image and legacy of Johnson, and very possibly not for the good.

This most congenitally elusive of politicians, who thrived in the onequestion-at-a-time discourse of the Commons but was deliberately shielded from detailed media interviews, faces at least 12 hours of questioning by one of the country's top barristers, Hugo Keith KC.

All this will be done under oath, in the glare of attention from the media and bereaved relatives, and in a detail that will not be lost on Johnson, using an inquiry template set up by the then PM himself.

When, in May 2021, Johnson announced a public inquiry into the pandemic, his decision that it would start taking evidence no earlier than spring the following year was widely seen as an attempt to kick the issue into the political long grass.