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Watch the Covid inquiry live as Boris Johnson gives evidence in London today:

The inquiry is now being shown graphs which Mr Keith says show the NHS would be ‘massively overwhelmed’ regardless of measures taken.

Mr Johnson said he was ‘bewildered’ when he saw the graphs, and worried that in either case the UK was facing an ‘intolerable’ situation.

He added: ‘I remember thinking there must be a reason we are being told not to [lockdown] urgently.’

Mr Keith says Mr Johnson never asked how to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed.

Mr Johnsons says he was ‘looking with puzzlement at the graphs’.

On March 15, Mr Johnson said in a WhatsApp message that based off the situation in Italy, ‘we simply have no time’.

Italy was the first western European country to be hit by Covid-19.

Mr Johnson this morning said the scenes in Italy seriously ‘rattled’ him, especially due to a reported eight percent death rate.

He said this was particularly concerning due to the UK’s ageing population.

On March 14, Mr Johnson said in a WhatsApp message: ‘Interesting/terrifying numbers needed’ for herd immunity.

Mr Keith says it appears the government was debating the pros and cons of herd immunity ‘for weeks’.

Mr Johnson says: ‘What happened on the 12th March is there was a press conference in which I had to level with the public and say a large number of people are going to lose their loved ones ahead of time and it was a pretty grim press conference.’

Mr Johnson said Sir Patrick Vallance told reporters the plan was to ‘suppress the curve’ of cases with ‘some degree of herd immunity’.

He added the government had no plans to let the virus ‘rip through’ the population and ‘we had to do a lot of clearing that up’.

What’s happened so far today?

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• Boris Johnson apologised for the ‘pain and the loss and the suffering’ in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, acknowledging that mistakes were made – for which he took ‘personal responsibility’
• The session was interrupted more than once as inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett ordering the removal of four protesters from the room
• Boris Johnson admitted he should have had a better gender balance in his team, saying: ‘Too many meetings were male dominated’
• The former PM defended his record, saying ‘we did our level best’ to manage the pandemic, using the information available at the time – and defended lockdowns as being ‘very important’
• Mr Johnson said former health secretary Matt Hancock ‘may have had defects, but I thought he was doing his best in challenging circumstances’
• Between January and February, Johnson said Covid was a ‘cloud on the horizon no bigger than a man’s hand’ and repeatedly claimed he was not warned it would become a ‘national issue’
• The ex-PM then said he was ‘really rattled’ by the outbreaks in Italy in February 2020 – admitting he should have ‘twigged much sooner’ how serious the virus was

Boris Johnson issued an apology today as he kicked off an epic two-day grilling at the Covid inquiry.

The ex-PM said he wanted to express how ‘sorry I am for the pain and the loss and the suffering’ of victims of the pandemic.

Mr Johnson acknowledged that ‘in hindsight’ mistakes had been made, and suggested the danger had been underestimated in the early stages because the last such crisis was ‘outside living memory’.

He said even by early February the government was ‘not yet believing’ that the ‘reasonable worst case’ of the virus sweeping Brits would be realised.

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Read more of the day’s events so far here:

Referring to an incident in which Mr Johnson shook hands with patients at a hospital on March 1, the ex-PM says he shouldn’t have done that ‘in retrospect’.

‘I wanted to be reassuring to people,’ he adds.

‘Although I’d been told we have a fantastic belt and braces system I was a little bit concerned, that [testing officials] weren’t as across the issue as they could be.’

He adds he didn’t know that the Health Secretary had been told at the start of February that the UK’s testing system wouldn’t be able to cope beyond the first few hundred cases.

Mr Johnson describes his relationship with Sage as a ‘doctor-patient’ relationship, saying he understood the group would not ‘tell him what to do’.

A text is now being read from Dominic Cummings, with ‘his assessment’ of Mr Johnson’s attitude towards coronavirus.

‘He doesn’t think it’s a big deal and he doesn’t think anything can be done and his focus is elsewhere, he thinks it’ll be like swine flu and he thinks his main danger is talking economy into a slump.’

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Mr Johnson said he wouldn’t rely on Mr Cummings’ reporting of his words and added: ‘I couldn’t see yet the plan’ to deal with Covid.

Proceedings at the coronavirus inquiry have resumed. Boris Johnson is once again giving evidence in repsonse to questions from Hugo Keith KC.

There are two distinct sets of protesters standing outside the Covid-19 inquiry.

The first are bereaved relatives of people who died during the pandemic. Emotions are running high and some are holding signs alluding to Partygate and claiming the government killed their relatives.

The second group are anti-vaxxers, who have turned out in numbers today to coincide with Mr Johnson’s presence at the inquiry.

Proceedings are set to resume in the next few minutes.

Boris Johnson was today quizzed on whether warnings over behavioural fatigue ‘effectively forced a delay’ of the nation going into lockdown.

‘I can’t say that I would have gone earlier because I think I would have been guided by what advice I was getting about when to put NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) in,’ Mr Johnson said.

‘Don’t forget that this is a once-in-a-century event. We’re doing things, we’re enacting policy that has never been enacted in our lifetimes in this country.

‘And to do it at the drop of a hat is very, very logistically difficult… it was not something you rushed into.’

Asked whether he pushed back against the notion of ‘don’t go to early’, the former prime minister said: ‘The short answer is no. Absolutely candidly, I don’t remember saying to myself: ‘This is so bad, they must be wrong, I must ignore the scientific advice and the threats to public health and have worse outcomes if we go too early’, and ‘I got to deal with the problem in front of the windscreen. I got to deal with it now’.

‘I didn’t do that, perhaps with hindsight, I should have done but, as I said to you right at the outset of this hearing, I just don’t know the answer.’

Guidance from the end of February 2020 told the government to prepare for more than 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, the inquiry heard.

A report by Katherine Hammond (Former Director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat), said the outbreak of a ‘severe flu pandemic’ would mean half the UK’s population would become ill and up to 520,000 people could die ‘as a result of Covid-19’.

Ms Hammond added: ‘The scientific advice is to use these numbers for planning’ but added they were ‘not a prediction’.

More now on Brosi Johnson’s decisions at the beginning of the pandemic over when to introduce virus restrictions during the ‘tragic, tragic year’ that was 2020.

Asked about whether warnings about ‘behavioural fatigue’ influenced his decisions on restrictions to prevent the spread of Covid, Boris Johnson told the pandemic inquiry: ‘Well, it was the prevailing view for a long time, and it wasn’t just the CMO (chief medical officer) who articulated the concept of behavioural fatigue.

‘If you look at many other meetings, or look at the press conference of March 12, you can see that the CSA (chief scientific adviser) gives a very full description of what happens if you go in hard and early with a population that has no immunity, and then you release the measures, it bounces back.’

He added: ‘And so my anxiety was ‘in the absence of therapeutics and without a vaccination programme, what would happen if we simply went into a hard lockdown early and then had no alternative but to come out’?

‘It was an anxiety, a problem that was very prevalent during those early days.’

Asked if the debate over the concept was important, he said: ‘It’s fundamental because it’s, I’m afraid, it’s what happened.

‘We have to be realistic about 2020 the whole year. That whole tragic, tragic year. We did lock down but then it bounced back after we’d unlocked.’

Boris Johnson is looking increasingly uncomfortable as he remains in the hot seat this lunchtime.

The former PM is making numerous hand gestures and has placed his head in his hands.

It’s worth saying Mr Keith is an experienced lawyer and has clashed with multiple previous witnesses at the inquiry.

Just as Mr Johnson was looking rather tired from the constant questioning, the inquiry chair Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE called a lunch break.

Mr Johnson will continue giving evidence at around 1.40pm.

Boris Johnson chaired his first Cobra on March 2, the inquiry is told.

The Cobra meeting was told that contact tracing for ‘the last two cases in the UK had not been successful’, and that there was ‘sustained community transition’ in both France and Germany.

Mr Keith says there was ‘no debate’ until this point about any track-and-trace system.

He adds the Chief Medical Officer had raised concerns that introducing measures too early would minimise their impact due to ‘behavioural fatigue’.

‘To what extent was your decision-making process influenced by this notion that intervention should not be imposed too early?’ Mr Keith says.

‘If you go in too hard and too early, have no immunity, and then release the measures, it bounces back,’ Mr Johnson said.

‘People get fed up. You have to keep doing it and so my anxiety was in the absence of therapeutics, without a vaccination programme, what would happen if we simply went into a hard lockdown early and had no alternative but to come out.’

He added the advice from the CMO was ‘fundamental’ in the decisions over lockdown, but said: ‘I can’t say I would have gone earlier’ without it.

Referring to notes taken of a meeting by Mr Johnson’s PPS, Mr Keith says: ‘As the PM instead of directing government to respond to the threat of a near existential crisis, you instead warned over the risk of overreaction.’

Mr Johnson says: ‘No, I said when are we going to make some decisions and on what evidence.’

According to the notes, shown in the inquiry, Mr Johnson said the most damage was ‘done by overreaction’.

Bringing up further notes from the end of February, Mr Keith asks: ‘Do you think you did enough?’

‘I did what I could,’ Mr Johnson responds.

Picking up on a Cobra meeting on February 26, which the ex-PM did not attend, Mr Keith asks: ‘Were you told that Cobra was told the reasonable worst case scenario was close to becoming reality?’

‘I don’t remember that,’ Mr Johnson replies.

There have been multiple references to various Cobra meetings in February which Mr Johnson did not attend.

Pushed for more detail on what he was told from the February 26 meeting, Mr Johnson says: ‘I can’t answer that question but it’s a very good question’.

Mr Johnson is now being asked about a trip to Chequers during February half-term, 2020.

Mr Keith acknowledges Mr Johnson returned to Downing Street three times during that period, but says he was not given a daily coronavirus briefing until he returned to London at the end of the week.

Mr Johnson tells the inquiry he spent that week phoning world leaders including the Chinese president, and US president Donald Trump.

‘Contrary to some of the evidence there was a lot going on and tempo did increase,’ he said.

Hugo Keith KC is now discussing the beginning of the pandemic when multiple parts of Italy locked down on February 21.

Three days later, members of Mr Johnson’s team were saying the Prime Minister would need to be briefed on ‘potential decisions’ he could have to make.

They added the virus had been treated as ‘fairly abstract’ by Mr Johnson until that point.

Mr Johnson says the situation in Italy ‘rattled me’, and that ‘I should have twigged sooner’ the scale of the emergency.

Here are the messages exchanged on February 6 in which Boris Johnson was told the virus was already ‘out of control’.

Sky News correspondent Tamara Cohen shares a screenshot of the messages, shown during the inquiry, which demonstrate Mr Johnson replied they ‘need to talk coronavirus comms’.

One of the four people removed from the inquiry at the beginning of Boris Johnson’s evidence on Wednesday is a volunteer at the Covid memorial wall, the BBC reports.

Fran Hall (second right) told the corporation the group the group knew Boris Johnson was going to apologise, so prepared signs that read ‘the dead can’t hear your apologies’ to take into the inquiry room with them.

She said: ‘The chair told us to sit down, we refused. We were told that we would be asked to leave the inquiry room but still refused to sit down – so we were kicked out.’

On February 6, Dominic Cummings told the PM in a WhatsApp group scientists had told him it was ‘out of control now’ and will ‘sweep the world’.

Mr Keith said Mr Cummings said it could be a major communications issue – why didn’t the PM respond and question if measures to stop the spread were needed?

‘When you hear an Asiatic pandemic is about to sweep the world, you think you’ve heard it before, and that’s the problem,’ Mr Johnson says.

‘I was not being told that this was something that would require urgent and immediate action.’

Boris Johnson has rejected the suggestion there was a ‘failed mindset’ in Government, but said a failure to act sooner after Covid emerged was a ‘natural human response’ to past health crises.

A short while ago the former prime minister said a coronavirus pandemic was ‘outside our living experience’ and instead the system remembered Sars, Mers and swine flu.

Asked if there was a ‘failed mindset’ by Hugo Keith KC, he said: ‘I think it was a human, natural response of people based on what they themselves seen and observed in their lifetimes.’

The inquiry is now hearing about decision-making over closing the UK’s borders at the start of the pandemic.

‘That is one of the most fascinating things about scientific advice during the pandemic’, Mr Johnson said.

‘Many views changed… but when it came to borders there was an overwhelming scientific consensus as far as I understood it, that [closing the borders] would achieve very little.’

Mr Keith says former Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the inquiry Mr Johnson was ‘unlikely’ to challenge advice on borders because he had an attitude that Covid was similar to ‘swine flu’.

Earlier the inquiry heard messages sent from Mr Johnson’s ex-advisor Dominic Cummings.

Watch here:

Boris Johnson has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry he may have only read minutes from the government’s scientific advisory group ‘once or twice’ during the pandemic.

The former prime minister said he was given ‘summaries’ of the discussions but that ‘in retrospect’ it may have been valuable to hear them in full while he was leading the response to the emerging crisis.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), a committee of scientists responsible for advising ministers on Covid, met hundreds of times.

Asked whether he ever read the minutes as he gave evidence on Wednesday, the former prime minister said: ‘I think I did once or twice look at the – maybe more than that – looked at what Sage had actually said and Sage certainly produced a lot of documentation.

‘But I think that the CSA (chief scientific adviser) and CMO (chief medical officer) did an outstanding job of leading Sage and distilling their views and conveying them to me.’

He added that ‘in retrospect it may have been valuable to hear the Sage conversation unpasteurised itself, but I was more than content with the very clear summaries that I was getting from the CSA and the CMO’.

Lead counsel Hugo Keith KC asked: ‘Did you not think of looking at the scientific horse in the mouth and seeing what was actually said by the government’s primary scientific advisory committee on these issues when you, as now appears to be the case, you became engaged particularly in the debate of behavioural fatigue?

‘Why didn’t you call for the primary material?’

Mr Johnson replied: ‘I think that’s a good question. I was very, very much impressed by and dependent on the CMO and the CSA, both of whom are outstanding experts in their field and it felt to me that I couldn’t do better than that.’

Covid was to become a ‘national disaster’, Boris Johnson has told the inquiry.

Defending his decision-making in the early days of the pandemic, Mr Johnson said even the term ‘pandemic’ did not alert Whitehall to the scale of the incoming problem.

Rishi Sunak has left Downing Street on his way to Parliament to participate in PMQs.

Protesters and bereaved families are standing outside the coronavirus inquiry in London today.

As Boris Johnson is grilled inside the building, families who were unable to watch are holding up photographs of their loved ones, who died during the pandemic, outside.

‘We underestimated the scale and pace’ of the pandemic, Mr Johnson tells the environment.

‘Was it system failure?’ Mr Keith asks. He says the UK’s scientists were ‘aware’ of the fact case numbers were being substantially underestimated by the end of January, and that there was no tracing system in place by early February.

‘I was being assured that we were in a good place [on track and trace],’ Mr Johnson said.

‘I don’t wish to say we were oblivious because we weren’t’, the ex-PM says.

‘It’s not as though nothing is happening, I think what is going wrong possibly is we are just underestiminating the pace, the contagiousness of the disease.’

Mr Keith has questioned how Mr Johnson’s government ‘failed to stop and think.

Mr Johnson was telling him about January and February 2020: ‘Everybody, if they stopped to think about it, could see the implications of the data… but I don’t think they necessarily drew the right conclusions in that early phase.’

He says the pandemic was a ‘once in a century event’ that was ‘completely outside of living memory’.

‘It wasn’t escalated to me as an issue of national concern until much later,’ he adds.

‘You were the Prime Minister’, Mr Keith tells Mr Johnson. ‘How could a government have generally failed to stop and think?’

Mr Hancock spoke to the PM at the start of January, and then again on the 22nd January, the same day the first Sage meeting took place.

He previously told the inquiry he had rung Johnson at least ‘four times’ to raise the alarm over Covid.

Mr Johnson says: ‘I don’t to be frank remember all those conversations but it’smtrue we would ahve spoken on many occasions because we generally spoke quite a lot.

‘In that period, January really to the end of Febraury, Covid was pretty much like and you didn’t know whether it was going to turn into a typhoon or not’.

Mr Keith says there were five Cobra meetings within one month about the emerging virus – did this seriousness not get through to the PM?

‘A cobra is a regular occurrence in government… the possibility of a coronavirus pandemic, which was only declared by the WHO on 12th March, it hadn’t really broken in the political world.’

Mr Keith asks if Mr Johnson was ‘aware’ Mr Hancock was chairing Cobras on those dates.

Mr Johnson says he knew ‘Matt was handling it’ but that he could not confirm he knew there were those Cobra meetings on those dates.

A short while ago the inquiry heard Mr Johnson admit his team was ‘too male-dominated’ – but he insisted his language was never misogynistic. Watch the full exchange here:

More than 20 percent of the UK population believe the government’s handling of the pandemic was too strict, a new poll has shown.

A survey for YouGov has found two fifths of the UK believe the government should have taken stronger action, while just a quarter think officials got it right.

Mr Johnson is asked whether he thinks the Chair should make recommendations about the appointments of advisers such as Mr Cummings.

‘At the time I decided it was best to have an atmosphere of challenge with some strong characters giving me advice and I valued that advice.

‘I do think I had access to the best [advice]’, Mr Johnson says.

‘Did you lose confidence in your Cabinet Secretary?’ Mr Keith asks.

‘No, he asked to step aside,’ said Mr Johnson.

Taking an extract from Sir Patrick Vallance’s notebooks, Mr Keith highlights his concerns about a ‘lack of leadership’, as the PM allegedly argued to ‘let [the virus] rip’.

‘I think this is wholly to be expected’, Mr Johnson says, when asked why so many advisers were raising criticism of the PM.

‘This was at a period when the country was going through a resurgence of the virus, we are looking at the October period, and Patrick talks about inconsistency.

‘We’ve just got to face the reality that the virus seems to be refusing to be surpressed by the measures we’ve used so far, we are going to need different measures, we’re coming out of lockdown… of course we’re changing, but so did the collective understanding of the science’.

Mr Keith highlights a message sent by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, which said: ‘I’ve never seen a bunch of people less-equipped to run a country’.

He tells Johnson this is not an issue of semantics or clashing personalities.

Johnson defended his team’s record, adding: ‘If you’d had the views of the Mandarin eight of the Thatcher government in unexpidated WhatsApps I think you would have found they were pretty fruity.’

He adds the fact his team was willing to criticise one another was ‘creatively useful’.

The Mail’s political editor reports Johnson told the inquiry he was ‘not alone’ in having to balance difficult characters, but defended his team saying they ‘got a lot done’.

Mr Keith highlights comments from Helen MacNamara that the relationship between No.10 and civil servants was ‘toxic’.

Mr Johnson says he was not aware that civil servants were allegedly refusing to come into work due to the working environment.

But he admits: ‘The gender balance of my team should have been better’.

He added: ‘Too many meetings were too male-dominated.’

Boris Johnson has indicated that the only easy decision during the pandemic was to roll out the vaccines.

He told the inquiry: ‘When it came to the balance of the need to protect the public and protect the NHS and the damage done by lockdowns, it was incredibly difficult.’

Hugo Keith says Dominic Cummings’ evidence showed ‘disarray’ in government, and refers to his ‘salacious’, expletive-fileld language.

Mr Johnson responds: ‘I’ve apologised to one particular person who suffered abuse in one of those publicised WhatsApp exchanges, but I would make a disctinction between the types of language used and the decision-making processes of the government.

He adds all his team were ‘under great stress’ and therefore were ‘inclined to be critical of others.’

He says ‘any other government’ facing similar pressures would have had similar issues.

Hugo Keith says health ministers were ‘sometimes excluded’ from meetings where public health issues were at stake.

Mr Johnson said: ‘I reject that’.

‘It was right to have endless conversations with the treasury,’ he continued, saying many of the pandemic measures were ‘very costly’.

Boris Johnson claims the cabinet was ‘more reluctant’ to impose lockdowns and restictions than he was.

Asked about whether the Cabinet was not a place for serious discussion, as Dominic Cummings previously told the hearing, he says this is ‘not true’.

Mr Keith repeatedly asks the ex-PM why he did not ask for primary notes from Sage meetings when making his decisions.

Mr Johnson says it is a ‘good question’ and says he relied on the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Medical adviser when he was making decisions.

‘In hindsight it might have been [useful] to hear the Sage advice unpasturised, he added’.

Boris Johnson is being questioned about numerous meetings he had at the start of the pandemic with his ‘innermost group of advisors’ – including Dominic Cummings.

Mr Keith says he wants to understand to what extent Mr Johnson ‘relied’ on their advice.

Mr Johnson said: ‘I of course relied on the advice I was given but the way it works is advisers advise and ministers decide, and that is what happened.’

Four people who were removed from Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 Inquiry hearing said they ‘didn’t want his apology’.

They said they stood up as he began apologising to hold up signs that read: ‘The Dead can’t hear your apologies.’

Speaking outside Dorland House in west London, Kathryn Butcher, 59, who lost her sister-in-law, told reporters afterwards: ‘We didn’t want his apology.

‘When he tried to apologise we stood up. We didn’t block anybody. We were told to sit down.

‘We didn’t sit down straight away. One of us said stayed standing, so the rest of us came out in solidarity.’

There were strong arguments against going too early into lockdowns, Boris Johnson is telling the Covid Inquiry.

He is now facing scrutiny under the government’s initial decisions during the pandemic.

Mr Johnson said: ‘When it came to the balancing of the need to protect the public and protect the NHS and the damage done by lockdowns, it was very difficult.’

There is more detail on these decisions expected later.

Boris Johnson kicked off an epic two-day grilling at the Covid inquiry today as he fends off criticism of his leadership.

The ex-PM said he wanted to express how ‘sorry I am for the pain and the loss and the suffering’ of victims of the pandemic.

But the session was briefly disrupted as several people had to be removed from the public gallery at the hearing, after they stood and seemingly held up photos of people who died.

Mr Johnson is set to mount a robust defence of his handling of the pandemic, after coming under heavy fire for delaying tough restrictions in the initial phase.

Mr Keith says the UK had one of ‘the highest rates of excess death in Europe’.

Mr Johnson disagrees and says: The ONS data I saw put us about 16th or 19th in a table of 33.

Mr Keith clarifies he meant ‘western Europe’.

Mr Johnson responded: ‘The statistics vary and I think every country struggled with a new pandemic.’

When pushed about why the UK had such a high excess death rate, the ex-PM pointed to the UK’s ageing population. When pushed to accept that governmental decisions played a factor, Mr Johnson said: ‘I don’t know’.

Boris Johnson has told Hugo Keith KC: ‘I take personal responsibility for all the decisions we made’.

Mr Johnson confirmed this includes the speed of the government’s initial response, lockdown decisions, the discharge of patients into care homes, the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and the relaxation of restrictions.

The Mail’s political editor Jason Grove is providing live updates from the inquiry.

Mr Johnson said a moment ago: ‘Unquestionably mistakes were made, and for those I unreservedly apologise.’

He added: ‘We did our level best’.

Mr Johnson is being questioned over missing WhatsApp messages on his phone.

‘I don’t know the exact reason but it looks as though it’s something to do with the app going down and coming up again, and automatically erasing all the things between the moment when it went down and the last time it had been backed up,’ he said.

Mr Keith claims there was a ‘factory reset’ of the phone.

‘I don’t remember a factory reset,’ Mr Johnson says.

‘I haven’t removed any WhatsApps from my phone,’ he adds.

Hugo Keith is reading a Whatsapp between Simon Case and Martin Reynolds.

Mr Case wrote: ‘PM is mad if he doesn’t think his WhatsApps will become public via Covid Inquiry’.

Mr Johnson told Mr Keith he ‘does not remember the conversation’ to which the message refers.

Boris Johnson has told the inquiry he and his government spent the pandemic ‘trying to prevent the loss of life’.

He told Hugo Keith KC: ‘What we were trying to prevent was the loss of life.’

He accepted Mr Keith’s assertion that those responsible for protecting the public should be subject to the ‘upmost scrutiny’.

Reporters at the inquiry say the disruption reported a minute ago was caused by ‘four people in the public gallery standing and holding up pictures’.

They were asked to sit down, and when they refused, were swiftly removed.

Hugo Keith KC began by reminding the inquiry of the period in which Boris Johnson was the UK’s PM.

Mr Johnson began by saying: ‘How sorry I am for the pain and te loss and the suffering…’

However he was immediately interrupted after four members of the public in the public gallery stood up and held photos.

One protester held up a poster reading: ‘The dead can’t hear your apologies’.

Chair of the Inquiry the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE asked ushers to remove them from the room.

Boris Johnson is currently being sworn in at the Covid Inquiry under oath.

He said the evidence he will give will be ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

Policing minister Chris Philp joked ‘it’s the first time Boris has ever been early for anything’ after the the former prime minister arrived at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry about three hours before he is due to give evidence.

Mr Philp told Sky News the inquiry should be about ‘dispassionately and forensically understanding what lessons can be learnt’ but that he was ‘sure there are things we could have done better’.

Bereaved families of coronavirus victims are ‘visibly upset’ after being told they are not able to sit in the inquiry room because of a lack of space.

Numerous relatives of those who died have turned out to watch Boris Johnson give evidence, but there simply are not enough seats to accommodate everyone, Sky News reports.

Watch as Boris Johnson arrived at the Covid inquiry – around three hours before it was due to begin.

It’s now less than ten minutes until Boris Johnson is expected to begin giving evidence.

He will be questioned by Hugo Keith KC, the counsel to the inquiry.

Johnson is expected to defend his decision-making over the pandemic.

The Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce will be among those keeping a close eye on Boris Johnson’s evidence at the Covid Inquiry today. He has tweeted the following:

Boris Johnson’s expected claim at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that he got the big decisions right during the pandemic would be a ‘grotesque distortion of the truth’, a lawyer for bereaved families has said.

Aamer Anwar, lead solicitor for the Scottish Covid Bereaved group, told a press conference ahead of the former prime minister’s evidence in west London: ‘Boris Johnson is expected to issue an apology this morning.

‘Yet he will claim he saved thousands of lives.

‘For many of the bereaved that will be a grotesque distortion of the truth.

‘In Boris Johnson’s words, instead of solving a national crisis, his government presided over a total disgusting orgy of narcissism.

‘He did let the bodies pile up and the elderly were treated as toxic waste.

‘As a result, over a quarter of a million people died from Covid. They cannot speak for themselves but their families, the bereaved and all those impacted by Covid deserve the truth today.’

With Mr Johnson likely to be grilled on the evidence of ex-colleagues, a report in The Times revealed that he has not been able to provide the inquiry with any communications spanning the early days of the pandemic and most of the first lockdown.

The paper reported that he told Baroness Heather Hallet’s inquiry that technical experts have not been able to retrieve WhatsApp messages from between January 31 and June 7 2020.

Technical experts had been trying to recover messages from his old mobile phone to hand them to the inquiry. Mr Johnson was originally told to stop using the device over security concerns after it emerged his number had been online for years.

He then reportedly forgot the passcode, but it was believed that technical experts had succeeded in helping him recover messages for the inquiry.

A spokesman for the former prime minister said: ‘Boris Johnson has fully co-operated with the inquiry’s disclosure process and has submitted hundreds of pages of material.

‘He has not deleted any messages.’

Boris Johnson arrived at the Covid inquiry today as he prepares for an epic two-day grilling on his pandemic decisions.

The former PM was driven up to the venue in central London nearly three hours before his appearance is scheduled to begin at 10am.

Mr Johnson is set to mount a robust defence of his leadership during the crisis, after coming under heavy fire for delaying tough restrictions in the initial phase.

Read more:

Good morning, and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage of the coronavirus inquiry.

From 10am former Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be giving evidence, which is expected to last for two days.

We will be bringing you all the latest updates as he is quizzed over his role in handling the pandemic.