‘Furious’ Sadiq Khan moans about being blocked from attending emergency COBRA meetings on Covid until only a week before lockdown – as No10 staff complained they’d also have to invite other mayors like Andy Burnham
Sadiq Khan was ‘furious’ about being blocked from attending Cobra meetings on the coronavirus crisis until just a week before lockdown, the Covid inquiry has been told.
In his witness statement to the official probe into the pandemic, the London mayor revealed his anger about being barred from high-level meetings until 16 March 2020.
Mr Khan wrote that he ‘simply could not understand’ why information on the Government’s impending ‘draconian measures’ was only being shared with him at a late stage.
‘I was both deeply worried, and furious that London had not been involved in conversations until this point,’ the Labour politician said.
Other documents published by the Covid inquiry revealed how No10 staff had discussed Mr Khan’s repeated requests to attend Cobra meetings on the growing crisis in early 2020.
They showed that one of then prime minister Boris Johnson’s aides had argued that Mr Khan could not attend the meetings without invitations also being sent to other regional politicians – such as West Midlands mayor Andy Street or Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham.
The Covid inquiry has previously heard how Dominic Cummings, the most senior adviser to Mr Johnson, wanted Cobra meetings to be held without the input of devolved leaders in March 2020.
Sadiq Khan was ‘furious’ about being blocked from attending Cobra meetings on the coronavirus crisis until just a week before lockdown , the Covid inquiry has been told
In his witness statement to the official probe into the pandemic, the London mayor revealed his anger about being barred from high-level meetings until 16 March 2020
Other documents published by the Covid inquiry revealed how No10 staff had discussed Mr Khan’s repeated requests to attend Cobra meetings on the growing crisis in early 2020
In his witness statement to the Covid inquiry, Mr Khan revealed that he had requested to attend a Cobra meeting on 2 March 2020.
He explained this was because London ‘was clearly one of the most at-risk placed in the country due to its large number of airports and international travellers, and high-density population’.
Mr Khan said No10 told him he would not be invited to the 2 March meeting and ‘no explanation for this was given’.
He also described how his request to attend a later Cobra meeting on 12 March was rebuffed without an explanation.
Mr Khan told the inquiry he was ‘finally’ invited to attend a Cobra meeting on 16 March with Mr Johnson, Cabinet ministers and the leaders of devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
He said he was told at the meeting that London was ‘a few weeks ahead of the country’, adding: ‘The rate of infection in the capital was far greater and spreading far quicker than anywhere else in the country and the greatest concentration in the Intensive Care Unites was in London.’
‘This was a moment I will never, ever forget… it was shocking to learn in that Cobra meeting directly from the Government for the first time just how bad things were,’ the London mayor continued.
‘I remember that the PM referred to the need for draconian measures and said the country would not have faced anything like it since the Second World War.
‘I simply could not understand why, particularly given the increasing severity of the outbreak in London and my repeated requests to attend previous Cobra meetings in order to be kept informed, this information was only being shared with me at this stage.
‘I was both deeply worried, and furious that London had not been involved in conversations until this point.’
Following the Cobra meeting on 16 March, Mr Johnson used a speech in Downing Street that afternoon to urge Britons to ‘stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel’.
The UK was then plunged into a complete national lockdown a week later on 23 March.
Other documents published by the Covid inquiry showed an email chain between key No10 staff, in which they discussed whether to accept Mr Khan’s request to attend a Cobra meeting in early March 2020.
On 9 March, Eddie Lister, who was No10 chief of staff, turned down the request and suggested Mr Khan and other mayors instead meet with then health secretary Matt Hancock.
When he was pressed again about Mr Khan’s request by a Downing Street official, he replied: ‘You can’t have him without Street, Burnham et al or is London more important than Manchester.’
The Covid inquiry has previously published WhatsApp messages between Mr Cummings and Mr Johnson from March 2020.
On 12 March, Mr Cummings told the then PM he needed to chair daily Covid meetings in the Cabinet room without the input of leaders of devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
‘You need to chair daily meetings in the Cabinet room — not COBRA — on this from tomorrow, im going to tell the system this,’ Mr Cummings wrote.
‘NOT with DAs on the f****** phone all the time either so people cant tell you the truth.’
When he appeared before the inquiry last week, Mr Cummings denied he was trying to ‘run down’ the Cobra system.
He said: ‘I certainly thought that the Cobra meetings we had with the PM were very Potemkin, they were extremely scripted.
‘And then having had these pointless things, we then had all sorts of people running straight out and yabbering to the media about what’s been said in a completely undisciplined way, which then undermined public confidence in things and caused a lot of trouble.
‘But with respect I wouldn’t say this is running down the Cobra system… what I would say is it was clearly unable to cope with the scale of the crisis and that a different system needed to be created.’
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