BORIS JOHNSON was the wrong politician to lead Britain during the pandemic, one of his closest aides admitted today, as Conservative Covid chaos was laid bare.

Speaking to the public inquiry into the pandemic, Downing Street communications chief Lee Cain said: “It was the wrong crisis for this prime minister’s skill set.

“He’s somebody who would often delay making decisions. He would often seek counsel from multiple sources and change his mind on issues.”

And former top Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings, in his own appearance at the inquiry, seethed with contempt at his then-boss, describing him as a Tory “trolley” swerving from one policy to another as tens of thousands died.

Asked about WhatsApp messages referring to colleagues in abusive terms, Mr Cummings said he was “reflecting a widespread view among other competent people at the centre of power about the calibre of a lot of senior people who were dealing with this crisis extremely badly.”

He confirmed that the government had known that a lockdown was unavoidable nine days before it finally announced one in March 2020, a period in which the virus spread exponentially.

The inquiry also saw messages and notes from the government’s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance, making it clear that Mr Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going.”

Other messages released confirmed that Mr Johnson was indifferent to deaths among people aged over 80 — “why are we destroying the economy for people who will die anyway soon,” read one note made by an aide of the premier’s comments.

He was however very much attuned to dissent over lockdowns in the right-wing media, the Telegraph in particular, which alarmed him deeply.

Sir Patrick’s notes also revealed that then-chancellor Rishi Sunak would not authorise assistance for poorly paid workers being forced to self-isolate. 

Mr Sunak blocked “all notion of paying to get people to isolate despite all the evidence that this will be needed.”

Indeed, class struggle vied with incompetence as a driver of Downing Street decisions. 

Evidence given to the inquiry showed that then-education secretary Gavin Williamson ignored warnings over Covid safety in schools because he did not want to “give an inch” to teaching unions.